


truly madly garply

by ecorone



Series: metasyntactic variables [1]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Biotechnology, Dissociation, Gore, Gunplay, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Medical Procedures, Neurodiversity, Other, Psychosis, Science Fiction, Smoking, fixing the bad science, morosexual Carlton Drake, sweddie, symbrake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-10-21 13:01:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 29,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17643332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecorone/pseuds/ecorone
Summary: The Life Foundation probe returns with four dead specimens.Six months later, a new company qualifies Eddie Brock for an experimental treatment for his brain cancer.Or: a tale of good tech, bad news, and dirty data deals.





	1. a plethora of untapped resources

Carlton Drake opens the trunk of the car. Revealed: four specimen containers, shining under parking lot lights. His breath catches in his throat. Finally, he’s brought them into existence — by seeing the specimens tonight, he’s made them _real_. Up until this moment, they had existed in data only. Temperature. EMFs. Motion. Video streaming, where it had been possible. He had been entranced by their physicality, the way they moved unlike anything from Earth—solid made fluid, shifting, falling into itself. Patterned, yet random.

 _They’re different colors_ , he realizes. No one had noted that in the reports.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells the four of them.

He’s about to close the trunk when he notices—

“They’re not moving,” he says to himself.

His audience—a huddle of white-coated, overtime-weary scientists—draws in closer. They sense something is more than a little wrong.

“They’re not moving,” he repeats. “Why aren’t they moving?” 

Dr. Dora Skirth speaks up: “Perhaps they’ve entered a quiescent stage due to the stress of transport.”

“What stress of transport?” he snaps. “These Biocapsules preserved the specimens’ initial conditions perfectly. Unless there’s some news you care to share, hmm? Faulty system check?”

“No,” Skirth says, and the other scientists are shaking their heads. “Nothing like that.”

* * *

A burst of negative-pressure air scrapes Carlton Drake’s body, marking his return to the lab room. The scientists are still scrambling, which is to say, the specimens still aren’t moving in their observation tanks. Carlton’s visibly frazzled, which is to say, two hairs along his hairline have escaped the confines of styling product. The hairs flutter against his eyebrow as he approaches the nearest computer. There’s a lower-ranking scientist seated there, but she moves aside for the Life Foundation CEO to access the comm. 

He fingerprints in and barks at the screen, “Probe Team Leaders, Logistics Team Leaders, report to Koch Lab, immediately.”

This done, he moves into his phone, fingers going _allegro_ at the screen with haptic commands. 

That done, he drops his phone back into his pocket. He waits in terse silence, not moving save for the impatient drum of his fingertips against the desk. 

_What’s taking them so long?_

He’s about to ping them again when the requested employees start trickling in. They gather before him, uneasy.

“One billion, seventy five million,” he tells the group.

He’s met with a gallery of confused faces. But these people have zero grounds to be confused. There was nothing unclear about what he just said. But he’ll clarify, because they _have_ to understand.

“This latest probe mission cost four point three billion dollars. We retrieved four specimens.” He splays his hands meaningfully. “Each specimen is worth one point oh seven five billion dollars.”

“We won’t lose sight of that,” someone says. One of the senior logistics supervisors. The large man has worked up a sweat despite the air conditioning. 

Carlton approaches him, gets uncomfortably close. “Sight has already been lost, wouldn't you say? Our specimens survived the trip from their asteroid to earth, to San Francisco. But then, when _Logistics_ hands over the specimens to _R &D_, they’re suddenly and mysteriously dead.”

The man says nothing.

Neither does Carlton, not immediately. He steps back and scans the small crowd, thoughts growing dark. The workers gathered before him were some of the best in the industry. And yet, perhaps, still not good enough. 

_Could I really be sure that one or more of them didn’t kill my specimens...?_

At last, he announces, “I will _personally_ be conducting a thorough investigation of tonight’s incident. I will be in contact with each and every one of you. Be prepared to present your case to me.”

 _That’s enough_ , he thinks, so he dismisses the gathered employees with a wave of his hand. He doesn’t want to look at them anymore, not right now.

Wasting no time, he turns to the nearest researcher and asks, “Who’s here overnight?” 

The young man freezes. “There’s no graveyard shift…? I-I think. I don’t know—I’m still in training.” He shrinks back slightly, as if anticipating an detonation inevitable.

“ _I Will Look Into It._ Alternatively, _I Will Get Back To You_ ,” Carlton corrects him. “I don’t like to hear _I Don’t Know._ Got that?”

“Sure, yes, I’ll—” he begins, but Carlton is already walking away.

“Skirth,” he barks. “I need Skirth.” There was a researcher more senior than she, but Carlton couldn’t recall his name. It was easiest just to call for Skirth. 

Skirth comes running up, snapping off nitrile gloves by habit.

“Cryo specimen number four, stat,” he tells her. “Do _not_ touch the first three. I’ll be back in two hours.”


	2. wildfire

SIX MONTHS LATER

Carlton Drake clicks his pen five times in succession. One click for himself, plus one click each for the other directors seated at the table. “If we’re done wringing our hands about OSHA’s latest gripe, I’d like to revisit the matter of my untitled project.”

Ramon Hernandez checks the time on his smartwatch with finality. “We came to a conclusion last time. Now, I believe all our ‘hand-wringing’ has given me an appetite for my overdue lunch.”

The other three directors stir. The end of a board meeting is a tantalizing idea—a golden ring floating in air, almost within reach. Carlton shuts them down.

“No one’s leaving.” Zeroing in on Hernandez, Carlton says, “Don’t come to these meetings hungry. It makes you dumb, and it makes you forget things. We did not come to a conclusion last time. I cut the meeting short because China called me.” Having aired these complaints, he relaxes invisibly and adds, “I have new data this time.”

While Hernandez bristles, Carl Mach says, “Data doesn’t have the power to save you from shareholders out for your blood. You might as well dispense with the probe and launch money straight into space. We’re not risking everything on another one of your pipe dreams.”

Carlton resumes his pen clicking. He thinks of the number two. Two is the smallest prime number. He has two hands. The average person can hold their breath for two minutes. If the world were ending in two minutes, Carlton Drake would spend them strangling both Hernandez and Mach simultaneously. One neck per hand. He would make it work. No, he would stave off the apocalypse. Keep earth running for at least three more minutes, or as sufficient to achieve their deaths by cerebral hypoxia. 

While Carlton is still thinking about the possibilities of _two_ , Leslie Gesneria chimes in: “Not to agree with Mach, necessarily, but we can’t ignore the risk of litigation.” 

In her typical airy way, Donna Diego adds: “A single hole in the hull is enough to sink the entire ship. It only takes one security breach.” 

Discussion ensues. Carlton doesn’t notice or care who last spoke, nor does he join in. His fellow directors know better than to expect his attention while he is still working through a thought cycle. 

When he’s ready, he says, “In eleven years of operation, we have not had a single security breach. With this potential product, we’ll have all the identities of our users—ergo, we inherently have the tools to keep the word ‘lawsuit’ out of their mouths.”

“Fine, fine.” Diego flaps her hand as if she’s shooing a fly—a move Carlton suspects was calculated to irritate him. 

Mach takes over: “We can close out that point. It was a waste of time to even talk about, anyway. We don’t have the kind of digital infrastructure to keep your precious little world in check. It’s unheard of. A monstrosity, even. Drake, there’s no market. No one’s ready for what you’re proposing.”

“I have to disagree,” says Gesneria. “We can’t wait around for someone else to build the future.” 

“Exactly.” Carlton gestures pointedly with his pen. “Waiting means death. We need to act now. _This_ is the game changer. _This_ is the big thing my company was meant to create.”

The voice of either Hernandez or Mach: “You said the same about your space missions, and we all know how that’s going.”

Carlton Drake isn’t seeing red. He’s hearing it. The sound is muffled, filtered from above. Like he’s deep in the ocean, but the water is hot instead of cold. 

“Let’s take a vote,” someone interjects, ending a period of debate. 

Drake sets his pen down. He already knows how each director will vote. A part of him wonders why he permitted his untitled project, his _baby_ , to leave the safe confines of his mind. 

Words. Hands go up and down, including Drake’s. More words. More hands.

When it’s done, Drake speaks. Calmly. Evenly. “Are you sure?” 

They’re sure. They leave the conference room to go get stupid lunch. Drake remains seated until he is alone. The air outside is still thick with wildfire smoke blowing in from the Valley. Silicon dreams of glory and conquest, combusted. The world might end with him still in it, after all. 

He'll see it out.


	3. crash landing

“‘Scuse me. ‘Scuse me.” 

Eddie Brock weaves around the metal laundry carts blocking his path. It's a tiny laundromat, and any number of customers is too many. It’s warm and humid inside. A TV is playing.

He starts unloading his first washer, the one right beside a lone wooden bench. There’s a woman seated there, her familiar looking bob hairstyle peeking over the top of a Chinese language newspaper. 

He tries: “Mrs. Chen?” 

For the past few months, Mrs. Chen of convenience store fame witnessed Eddie’s post-breakup downward spiral via his series of increasingly embarrassing purchases. He was grateful—no, comforted by the way she boredly rang up his items each time without judgment. 

The newspaper comes down.

“Eddie Brock. You look professional,” Mrs. Chen says, indicating Eddie’s laundry day outfit: dark gray slacks and a blue Oxford dress shirt.

“Thanks. I ran out of clothes.” Well, sort of. His clean clothes had sat in the laundry basket for so long that they might as well have been dirty, and at some point he had started dumping dirty clothes on top of them with no regard for life or love. “I didn’t know you went to this laundromat.”

“I come here every Sunday. I’ve been here for forty minutes.” 

Eddie nods lamely. Mrs. Chen points behind him — at the teenaged boy who’s leant against a counter, watching the TV. “That’s my son, Eddie.”

The boy greets Eddie with a silent chin-up. Eddie recognizes him, kind of—he’s seen him hanging around the convenience store once or twice. Eddie finishes moving his clothes and feeding the dryers his precious quarters. And then, for lack of anything better to do, he circles around and joins Son of Chen in watching the wall-mounted TV. It’s running a commercial for Venom energy drinks in typical Venom ‘style.’ This one has scantily clad women driving monster trucks at each other like bumper cars. 

_“Venom,”_ says The Blonde One sexily. She’s not wearing a helmet or looking at the dirt arena she's donutting in. _“It feels good inside of you.”_

_Gross._

The commercial ends with the girls chugging Venom behind the wheel. They’re not very good at it—half of the beverage runs out of their mouths and down their cleavage.

Chen-Boy asks Eddie, “Have you been watching the news segment?” 

“Not really.” For a journalist, Eddie didn’t read or watch as much news as he should. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name…?”

“Eddie.”

_Ah._

Eddie Brock’s attention wanders away from the screen and across the wall. The television is flanked by two signs. 

The left one says: PLEASE DON’T OVERLOAD THE MACHINES.

The right one says: FAVOR DE NO LLENAR MUCHO LAS MAQUINAS.

Eddie glances back at the screen. The commercials have gone. In their place is Carlton Drake: CEO of Life Foundation, bioengineering whiz and all-but-confirmed crook. He’s chumming it up with some local news anchor. They chat about his young scientists scholarship program and some other nicey nice PR things. Drake invites the host to come see his students’ startup at Braincon. 

“‘Braincon’?” Eddie Brock scoffs. “What’s that, a gathering of zombies?” 

Eddie Chen shrugs one shoulder. “Of sorts. It’s a tech convention, technically.”

“You got any ginger ale?” 

“No, why?”

“I feel sick to my stomach,” Eddie says darkly. It’s not entirely a joke at Drake’s expense. Eddie’s stomach is roiling like he’s ten shots deep. He staggers to the nearest counter and lets it take his full weight.

Eddie Chen stares. “You okay? You’re sweating. Like a lot _a lot.”_

“My head hurts. I’ve been having headaches for a while now, but this one… I think I’m…”

 _...having a stroke? Oh my God, I’m having a stroke. Fuck. Fuck. I looked at Carlton Drake’s face on TV and now I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die in my business casual laundry day outfit in this laundromat with the Chens as my witness._ The rest of Eddie’s thoughts dissolve into chaos and mind-fucking pain—

“Who’s that?” He looks around wildly. Someone had called his name, but the voice was so strange. Unearthly.

“Eddie!”

Mrs. Chen. She was the one who called his name, probably. She runs toward him. It’s a funny sight, though, ‘cause there’s a bunch of Mrs. Chens. The first Mrs. Chen runs inhumanly fast. Behind her is a string of slower and slower Mrs. Chens.

Eddie laughs at all of this until the ground falls up.

* * *

_YOU have a brain tumor._

_You have A brain tumor._

_You have a BRAIN TUMOR._

_What does a brain feel like? Is it rubbery, firm, spongy? Or soft and wobbly like Jell-O?_

The doctor moves closer to Eddie. His mouth flaps faster. He looks concerned.

With dismay, Eddie realizes he’s spaced out on some very important information. The doctor had shown Eddie some medical images of his brain. Some anatomical terms had been thrown about, and some explanations of those anatomical terms. That was the last thing Eddie remembers. He tunes in now.

“...you feeling alright, Eddie?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I just spaced out for a minute. Sorry.” 

_It was definitely more than a minute._

Dr. Dan Lewis nods understandingly. “No need to apologize. I shouldn’t have been so long-winded. I can say it again, if you’d like…?”

_My ex’s new boyfriend really is a saint. A saint and a neurologist. It’s probably for the best than Anne Weying and I never got engaged._

“Please do. I’ll listen this time.”

Eddie listens as promised, although Dan’s voice sounds distant and murky, like Eddie’s deep underwater.

“You have glioblastoma multiforme. This is a nasty kind of tumor. It’s dug its roots in, and it’s gonna grow fast. I’d like to start attacking the cancer right away before it spreads further. Would you like to talk about treatment options?”

_He probably does the dishes every night and knows how to talk about feelings with Anne instead of turning into a stone and doesn’t keep trash in his car for weeks and isn’t scared to kill the spiders._

“Treatment options,” Eddie repeats. “Ah yes, treatment options.”

The concern is back on Dan’s face.

_Dan the Man. Dan and Anne. Danne. Anne was always putting me back together again. Dan is a complete adult human being, no assembly required. No, he never kills a spider. He makes a clever trap and sets spidey free outside._

“How long?” Eddie asks. “How long do I have to live? I’m sure you said it already, but just tell me again—no, wait, let me guess!” He rubs his hands together. “Six months. Ha. It’s always six months.”

“With treatment, yes, six months is possible," Dan explains. “Based on the size and establishment of the tumor, I would say maybe three months without treatment. I’m sorry, Eddie. I’ve never seen a case like yours. It’s… it’s a miracle that you’re still alive.”

_A miracle, huh?_

“But nothing is guaranteed,” Dan adds quickly. “Now is the time to consider cancer treatment.”

_Fuck, I can’t afford cancer treatment. I couldn’t even afford my ambulance ride or ER visit from earlier._

“I don’t want any treatment. I’ll sweat this one out.” Eddie hops to his feet. “Thanks for, uh, seeing me today.”

“Wait! Eddie, please. Respectfully speaking, this isn’t something you can ‘sweat out’.”

“Oh, but I’m the best at sweating. I’m sweating as we speak.” Eddie walks to the door, but he doesn’t leave just yet. 

Dan follows him. “If it’s a second opinion you want, I know some other specialists—they’re all very good. The best in the Bay.”

“Noooo thank you.” Then, more soberly, he adds, “You’re not gonna tell anyone, are you?”

Dan looks at him meaningfully. “It’s my job not to.”

“Right, thanks again.” Eddie breezes out of the room.

“If you change your mind, let me know,” Dan calls after him.


	4. I HAVE A BRAIN TUMOR

Eddie wasn’t planning on getting out of bed today, but whoever is knocking on his door won’t go away, no matter how many times he yells “FUCK OFF!”

At last, he tears himself from the warm embrace of his bed covers. Cursing under his breath, he drags himself to the door. His neighbor across the hall is blasting awful metal music again—still not loud enough to scare off this visitor. 

He opens the door.

In her left hand she’s holding two hot Philz coffees in a drink carrier. Dangling from her elbow is a plastic bag with some wrapped sandwiches in it.

She. 

Anne Weying. 

His ex-girlfriend, his almost fiancée, the one that got away.

“Eddie,” she breathes. “Thank God. For a second, I thought”—she shakes her head. “I was about to kick that door down.”

“Hi, Anne.” He shifts awkwardly. “Sorry for ignoring your texts yesterday. And calls. The voicemails though—come on, who leaves a voicemail these days?”

She smiles. “I brought Philz. And subs! I know you left your heart in Lioni’s in Brooklyn, but these are pretty good.”

“Thanks. Really, thank you.” He doesn’t move from the doorway. “Uh… I don’t know if ya should see this. The, the situation inside is not safe to look at with human eyes.”

Anne rolls her human eyes. “I don’t care that you didn’t clean. I’m coming in.”

Eddie does three things in quick succession. He opens the living room window to let the grunge out. He makes room on the couch for Anne to sit by consolidating his piles of dirty clothes. He clears a space on the coffee table (a mockery of a still life painting—old bottles and soda cups and scattered dried tangerine peels). 

Anne lays her offering on the table. The coffee and Italian deli sandwiches smell delicious— _God, the bread’s still warm!_ His nausea isn’t bad today. Logically, he should eat something.

“So, how have you been?” Anne asks, her tone measured. She takes a casual sip of coffee. Some bits of shake weed have stuck to the bottom of the cup, courtesy of Eddie’s filthy coffee table.

“You mean, what’s wrong with me this time?” Eddie says flatly. “That’s what you really want to know.”

“Okay, yes, sort of. I’m worried about you. I heard you quit your job all of a sudden—what’s going on?”

In between sips of coffee, Eddie holds the cup tightly, lets its warmth leach into his hands. 

_I may have hit rock bottom harder than my dad hit my mom, but at least I can still appreciate Philz_ , he thinks, followed by: _She really doesn’t know._

He should probably ease into it. Break the news gently.

“I have a brain tumor.”

Anne freezes with the coffee cup halfway to her mouth. “You’re serious.”

“Serious as a brain tumor.”

No one says anything for a minute. Anne looks like she’s processing. She was always good at that. Calculating all the possible realities and futures that branched off into infinity.

At last, she speaks, a rush of words desperate to fill the void of sound. “That explains a couple of days ago. I asked Dan how his day was, and he gave me this _wild_ look. It was like…” She cuts herself off, looking guilty.

“It’s okay, Anne. Just say it.”

 _Listen to her!_ He listens, but it’s hard to look at Anne and the sad smile on her face.

“He looked like you did that time you ate a whole ghost pepper—do you remember that?”

Eddie blinks. “Yeah. Wow, yeah, that was so long ago. So stupid. I really thought that was way to impress you. And that was our first date, wasn’t it?” He shakes his head. “I tried to play it cool at first, but inside I was dying a thousand fiery deaths. I could barely talk to you because my lips were numb—what was it I kept saying?”

“‘Hell’,” Anne recalls. “You were like, ‘Hel’! Hel’ ‘eeee!’ ‘Cause you couldn’t say, ‘help me!’”

He’s laughing now. Anne’s laughing, too. They laugh harder than they want to.

“Oh God, and the aftermath—my ass was a pure volcano, just endless lava pulsing out.”

“That’s when I knew there would be a second date.” She wipes at her eyes, catches her breath. “I’m sorry, Eddie. I’m so sorry. It’s not funny.”

“No no, it is. It is funny. Hilarious, even.” He laughs again, even though she’s stopped laughing.

Anne smoothes the front of her skirt. “I knew I couldn’t make Dan tell me what happened, but I had this horrible gut feeling.” Her voice is quiet now, sober. “What are we going to do?”

_We?_

“Did you and Dan talk about treatment at all?” she goes on.

He hesitates. “Uhhhh… thing is… no. I didn’t let him.”

“Are you serious? Eddie, if you have a chance to beat this, why would you not take it?”

_Because I’m tired._

“Because the chance doesn’t exist. It’s called glioblastoma multiforme. I did my research. There’s nothing left for me except suffering and prolonging the inevitable.”

 _Asshole,_ he tells himself. _She’s trying to support you, but you won’t even spare her a crumb of hope. Selfish._

“I’m selfish,” Anne announces. “I know it’s your life, and your body, but I _want_ —” She stops herself.

Eddie used to have lucid dreams. Sometimes, he was aware he was dreaming, but he couldn’t control what was happening to him. Other times, he built his own dreams. Those were the best dreams. He was powerful. He could fly and breathe underwater. He could move between dreams, or wake himself up.

Or bury himself deeper.

He hears Anne’s voice, thick and trembling: “I’m going to ask you this one favor. Talk to Dan again, find out what your options are. You don’t have to act on them—I just want you to have all the information. And don’t worry about the cost. We’ll figure something out—we’ll raise the funds.”

“Okay,” says Eddie. “I’ll do it, for you. I’ll call him later today, promise.”

Anne gets up and hugs him. It feels like going back in time. Like everything’s normal again and Eddie’s not dying of brain cancer. He’s unshowered but she smells so good and her hair is soft against his cheek and he’s afraid to sully her by hugging her back so he doesn’t.

* * *

A day goes by before Eddie forces himself to make the call. He has lain there in bed for the good part of the afternoon, holding back from sending that 415 number to space. Is that how cell phone calls work? He’s not sure.

Six rings go by before someone picks up. 

_“Neurology, this is Omar.”_

“Um, hi, I’m looking for Dr. Dan Lewis. Name’s Eddie Brock. I’m his patient.”

_“Dr. Lewis is on his lunch break right now. I can take a message.”_

He hesitates. 

_Say yes! Say yes, you coward! Attempt contact with Dan._

_Then again, this Omar guy sounds busy._

“Uh, no. That’s alright. Thank you.”

He hangs up. Stares at his unshaven, double-chinned reflection in the black screen of his phone. _Why am I like this?_

The screen lights up with an incoming call. 

Anne.

 _“Eddie, I just got off the phone with Dan. He knows someone who knows someone who can really help you.”_ A pause. _“Do you want to hear about it?”_

Eddie thinks, _Nah._

“Uh, sure.” 

_“Great, so, there’s this new company called ‘ThirdAi’ - that’s ‘eye’ spelled A-I. They’ve developed a medical device called the Symbiote. It’s been used successfully to treat cancers of the eyes, lungs, pancreas… basically every organ-specific cancer, and now they’re trying to get it approved for brain cancer treatment. I believe you would qualify for it under the compassionate use pathway. And you wouldn’t have to pay a dime. In fact, they’ll pay you. What do you think? It’s not too late to squeeze you in for clinical trials.”_

“Um…”

_“Sorry, I know I’m talking really fast and that was a lot to take in. I’ll give you some time to think about it. Here, I’m sending you some info right now. I think there’s a survey you have to fill out.”_

Two email notifications pop up in quick succession.

“How much?” Eddie asks. “How much will they pay me?” Maybe it’s silly to think about money when his brain is rotting, but if he’s going to stick around for a little longer, he might as well get something out of it. 

_“Fifty k.”_

Eddie sits up. _Fifty. Thousand. Dollars? U.S. DOLLARS??_

_“Even if you have to drop out of the study for some reason, you still get the money. Legally, it’s yours. Trust me, I’m—”_

“—A lawyer,” Eddie guesses. “Yeah. Wow. Fifty thousand dollars. That’s a lot more than most clinics would pay, isn’t it? You know, I once tried to sell myself to Pacific Reproductive Services—you know, that sperm bank? Turns out, no one wants my sperm because I didn’t go to college.”

_“So you’ll do it? You’ll apply for the Symbiote clinical trial?”_

Eddie rolls out of bed. He’s sprung to life like that asshole Grandpa Joe when he gets his golden ticket in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He crosses his bedroom to the moldy-framed window. _Fifty thousand dollars._ Chump change to some people, but for Eddie in his last days? He could live nice, real nice.

 _“Eddie?”_ comes Anne’s voice faintly from his phone. _“Eddie? You still there?”_

“Yes,” he answers her. “I’ll do it.”

Anne celebrates. 

_“I gotta go now. Take care of yourself, Eddie.”_

“I will. Love you.”

_“Love you, too.”_

Their mutual, horrified silence stretches for several seconds. Then, at once, they start talking over each other:

Eddie: “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that. Not that I don’t—well, ya know, it’s complicated—”

Anne: _“You said that on accident, too, right? On my part that was definitely, definitely a force of habit thing—”_

Eddie replies, “Yes. Yeeeahhh,” and smashes the ‘end call’ button before he can repeat the same accident. 

But there’s no time for him to dwell on or freak out about what just happened. He has an urgent message for San Francisco. He throws open the window and yells:

“I HAVE A BRAIN TUMOR. I’M GOING TO DIE RICH, BABY!”


	5. think of a monster

There’s a fish tank here, even though it’s a clinic and not a dental office. Perplexing. Eddie’s in the waiting room. One earbud in his ear, headphone cord in his mouth (for light chewing). He’s extra-casually watching a video of Drake’s speech at that the tech zombie convention in San Jose. 

_“I want to start off with a little experiment here. I would like you all to please, close your eyes, and imagine a companion. Don’t overthink it, just hold that picture in your mind for a few seconds.”_

Eddie holds his will steady, refusing to go along with the dumb game. And that’s when something creeps around the corner of his mind. He tries to push it away, but there it is. Not an image, not really. It’s more of a feeling. If it had a body, it would be slippery. Soft edges, strange and home at the same time. 

_“Now open your eyes. I won’t ask you to tell me, or anyone, what you imagined. But I already know what I’d find: every single one of you pictured something different. Some of you pictured an animal companion, like a dog or a cat. Some of you pictured a human, someone very special.”_

Eddie scoffs aloud in the waiting room. _Bay Area Billionaire Has Game-Changing Epiphany: Different People Have Different Thoughts,_ he thinks.

_“Or maybe, what you pictured is an entity that doesn’t even exist on this earth. And isn’t that what we want?”_

Eddie’s mouth twitches.

_“...A companion that’s uniquely ours, just like our DNA, or our fingerprint. Now, suppose we took this concept and upgraded it. This companion would be more than your friend—it’d be a powerful tool in all aspects of your life. So we did a simple survey. We asked 10,000 people to tell us what ‘powers’ they’d like from a companion—no possibility was disallowed. I myself tried to predict what most people would say they wanted. Super strength. Healing factor. The ability to climb a really, really tall tree, but, like, super, super fast. (Audience laughs.) Well, as it turns out, my predictions were off. I’m okay with admitting that because I’m a scientist, and scientists never stop learning, right? You see, what most people wanted was increased knowledge and intelligence.”_

“Speak for yourself," he mutters. _I’ll take the superpowers._

_“And that makes sense, doesn’t it, in this day and age? We’ve been rapidly moving our lives from the physical to the digital. We don’t even fight wars on foot anymore—we have drones for—”_

The door to the clinic area swings open. A woman in scrubs pokes her head out and calls, “Edward Brock.” 

Shit. Eddie yanks out his earbud, pauses the video, and shoves both his phone and his tangled up earphones into his pocket. 

* * *

“How are things going, Eddie?” Dr. Yeun Call-Me-Marvin asks from his seat at the computer. Marvin is a round-faced man with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair.

The exam table paper crinkles underneath Eddie as he shrugs. “I guess we’ll see. I just signed a bunch of legal documents which I meant to, like, really really scrutinize—ya know, ghost of my attorney ex-girlfriend and all.” 

“Oh, I see,” Marvin says sympathetically, half-listening as he watches the readout from his computer.

“But then”—Eddie plucks at his bracelets—“I came down with another clusterfuck headache, and I tried to, like, ask for the docs to go, but the lawyer—Raquel Rodriguez, apparently from LA—was all, ‘This was due from you eleven hours ago.’ Which was true. So we’ll see if I owe the company all my internal organs or somethin’.”

“Wow, really? Okay, Eddie, for this part, I need you to lie down and be at peace.”

_Nice way of saying: Shut Up, Stop Fidgeting and Calm Down._

Lying on his back, staring up at the bare white ceiling, Eddie becomes hyper-aware of his breathing. He’s itching to ask Marvin if he’s breathing too fast or too shallow—he’s not sure what happens if he messes up the test. He probably shouldn’t move his head, but he does—to peek at Marvin. Marvin’s frowning at the screen— _hopefully in concentration, not concern…?_

 _“Baseline established,”_ announces the pleasant feminine voice from Marvin’s computer.

“Great,” Marvin tells Eddie. “Everything checks out here. Except for, you know, the massive glioblastoma multiforme.” He chuckles. “But that shouldn’t be a problem for much longer.”

Marvin deactivates the portable body scanner. Eddie moves to sit up, but Marvin guides him to lie down and be _at peace_ again. A small steel cart appears by his side. Eddie’s palms are sweating—he decides not to look at the cart or whatever’s on it. His forehead gets scrubbed with two different liquids, both cold—first something chemical-y, then something alcohol-y.

“Installation time! Here is a local anesthetic. Less for pain and more to keep you from doing this.” Marvin makes a few funny, scrunchy faces. 

Eddie’s too nervous to laugh, but he finds himself very slightly mirroring Marvin’s facial expressions. A twinge and several minutes later, and his forehead smoothes out. Marvin comes back with different gloves and anoints Eddie’s forehead one more time. Eddie _hears_ the short incision of skin—doesn’t feel it, really, just light pressure. Some crinkling, and then Marvin grasps something small with tweezers and holds it just outside Eddie’s field of vision.

“Wait. Can I look at it before you put it in me?”

“Sure.” 

A small circle, the size of a contact lens but thicker, comes into view. It’s translucent-opalescent, conforming to the grip of the tweezers. Marvin moves his hand a little bit, angling the disc so that it catches the light: an intricate pattern of nodes, faintly illuminated, radiates outward from a dark center. 

“It’s beautiful.”

Marvin hums like he’s never thought of it that way. “Yeah, I guess it is.” His hand moves in and down. “Relax,” he says cheerfully.

Eddie stops him with one more question: “How does it work?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, if I did, I probably couldn’t tell you, anyway.” 

_Ah. He’s got an NDA up his ass, too._

Chuckling, Marvin adds, “They just trained me to do this quick little procedure and that’s it.”

Eddie shuts up and lets Dr. Yeun do his thing. Barely two minutes later, he’s patching up Eddie’s forehead (“Not stitches—this is a flexible, self-dissolving sealant”) and sitting him up. 

After a second baseline check, the smiling physician sends Eddie on his way with: “Your Symbiote will turn on at a set time tomorrow, to ensure your length of trial is consistent with your cohorts’. Have a nice life.”


	6. hello world

**Good morning, Edward.**

Eddie sleeps on.

**GOOD MORNING, EDWARD.**

Eddie jerks awake, heart rate rocketing. _Who’s there?_ That voice was:

1\. Deep  
2\. Scary  
and  
3\. Close 

Conclusion: he’s not alone in his room. 

**Good morning, Edward,** repeats the voice. _Inside_ his head.

At least one of Eddie’s synapses fires off.

“Oh, it’s you. You’re the tiny computer-thing in my, uh, forehead.” He hadn’t expected the device to actually converse with him, but it makes sense. How else would it communicate alerts, such as:

 **Increased heart rate detected,** it announces, seemingly to amuse itself. Followed by: **Increased perspiration detected.**

“Shh. I know,” Eddie tells it, semi-delirious. He settles into his sheets, willing his muscles to relax. “Why are you awake at 6:00 am?”

**Default wake-up time on Saturdays is 6:00 am Pacific Standard Time. Would you like to modify this setting?**

“God, yes. Who the fuck wakes up at 6:00 am on a Saturday—no offense, I know you’re just doing what you’re programmed to do. Well, here’s some feedback for you: I’m never up before noon unless I can help it. Got that?”

**Okay, Edward. Setting wake-up time to 12:00 pm Pacific—**

“Nonono, don’t do that. Undo that setting. Just… just, you wake up when I wake up, from now on. And, call me Eddie. Not Edward.”

**Okay, Eddie.**

“What, um… what should I call you?”

**I am RIOT.**

“So your name is Riot.”

**My name is _undefined._ Would you like to change this setting?**

“Suuure,” Eddie says slowly. His eyes scan the room in random, lazy arcs. Six am on their first day of testing was far too early to pick a suitable name. His gaze shuttles over the two empty cans of Venom energy drink sitting on his nightstand. Eddie Brock’s most recent shame purchase. Turns out, Venom tastes pretty good, thanks to all those weird chemicals which Eddie has zero health concerns about, at this point.

“Venom,” he proclaims. “There ya go. Your name is Venom. Cuz you woke me up. Ha, haaa…” Eddie’s sarcastic laugh melts into a yawn. 

**Venom.** The Symbiote hums, almost as if it were pleased. 

_Venom??_ Yikes. Whatever, he could always change its name later, after he felt more comfortable with the Symbiote. 

“‘M gonna try to fall back asleep now.”

**Would you like me to help you initiate sleep?**

“What’s that involve? A nice and gentle Vulcan death grip to my brain parts?” Eddie snorts. 

There’s an answering _whir_ in his temple, like Venom is thinking hard about what Eddie just said. His good humor evaporates, leaving him horrified. 

“Don’t answer that,” he snaps, yanking the covers over his head. _Or I’ll never be able to sleep again._

It’s fine. It’s fine. Venom is a computer program. Probably was just offering to play some relaxing music. It wouldn’t be able to control Eddie, because Eddie’s not a machine. Right? Yeah. They’re made of totally different stuff. 

He shuts his eyes. “Good night, Venom.”

**Good night, Eddie.**

* * *

The data center is immaculate. Polished floors. Tall, soldier-like rows of servers, blinking, glittering. Above, the ever-present hum of the air conditioning system. But they aren’t here to look on these works. As Carlton and his bodyguards stride down the endless hallway, security cameras swivel in their direction. Lofty, unblinking glass eyes. Carlton pays them no mind. 

They round the corner and enter the storage room, shutting the door behind them. 

It’s full of junk in here: retired machines, dusty cleaning supplies, scattered hardware, half-gutted toolboxes. The air is warm with the smell of pre-2000s computers. Like plastic and chemicals made airborne. It’s a pleasant scent to Carlton, one that sets off a wave of nostalgia. No chairs in the room. Just a cheap table in the center piled high with old manuals and loose papers.

Two men are slouched against this table: Umbarger and his associate, Kozera. Both holding back early morning yawns. Upon Drake’s arrival, they straighten up.

 _They weren’t expecting me_ , Carlton notes with satisfaction. _Probably thought I’d send an underling they could strongarm._ He’s never gone through Umbarger before—the man had recently taken over the position after the sudden death of his predecessor. Roland Treece had vetted him on Carlton’s behalf. But Carlton needed to see him in person. Assess his value. 

Carlton retrieves the small drive from his inner jacket pocket and sets on the table, in the center of an ancient coffee ring. “Five terabytes of user data.”

“Compressed or uncompressed?” says Umbarger.

“Uncompressed. You want compressed data, compress it yourself.”

Umbarger’s reply comes after a stiff second. He spreads his hands. “The client wants eight terabytes.”

_Playground antics._ Carlton makes a mental note of simply _Treece._ “We agreed on five.”

Umbarger gestures at his associate, who looks surprised at the opportunity to speak. Hiding his nerves with a smirk, Kozera says, “Deal’s changed, in light of the, uh, ongoing turmoil in your board of directors. The client wants to make sure that they can expect a consistent supply in the, uh, future.” 

_And how would the client in China have heard of the ongoing turmoil in my board of directors?_

“Company politics doesn’t affect the quality of these data.”

Umbarger shakes his head. Kozera does his nervous smirk again. Two impulses hit Carlton—not his own, but they bleed into his brain just the same.

First impulse: twist Umbarger’s head off like a bottle cap.

Second impulse: cut Kozera’s mouth off his face and paste it on the wall.

Riot’s voice fills Carlton’s head, gravelly and harsh: **Would you like me to kill them?**

Carlton grabs the drive and stows it back in his pocket. “Tell your client that the deal is five TB. I’ll be back when they change their mind.”

Umbarger tips his head. “Salam alaikum,” he drawls—this Carlton pointedly ignores.

Carlton stalks out of the room, bodyguards falling in line around him.

 **It’s not too late** , Riot adds, as they’re headed for the car. **Let us go back, and I will feed them their own tongues.**

“No. It’s too soon. Besides, our pilot is waiting for us.”

The Symbiote vibrates with excitement. **PLANE.**

Their first plane ride had been nothing short of a revelation for Riot, Carlton recalls. Only fitting. He does his best thinking on planes—it was on a flight that Carlton wrote what would later become RIOT. They’d flown through a meteor shower that night. As the plane broke through the cloud layer, Carlton looked down at the city laid out beneath him like a microchip… an idea consumed him. Like he’d been asleep his whole life and finally woke up. He started typing everything down, but his thoughts were coming faster than he could keep up. When the plane landed, the spell was broken.

He was stuck with that version of the code for a long time. It was beautiful, but a bit _off._

The alien specimens changed everything.


	7. private static void

There’s a lot of factors to consider. Size. Shape. Color. Arrangement. Eddie Brock may not be a scientist, but he is a (retired?) investigative journalist, which counts for something. All of the thrills of chasing the truth, and almost none of the mathematics.

And so, as he—they’re—waiting to cross the street, he decides: “Human shit.”

The person standing next to Eddie checks out his ear. People always want to know if he's wearing a Bluetooth earpiece or secret headphones or whatever.

At Venom’s confusion, he explains: “Human Shit or Dog Shit—it’s a game Anne and I used to play whenever we walked around the city.” He indicates the large fecal sample decorating the base of the traffic pole. An almost picture-perfect recreation of the poop emoji. Just missing a smile and a pair of eyes. 

“It’s actually kinda hard to tell sometimes. Anne though, she loved to argue the obviously wrong answer. Just to test me, y’know. But that was a dangerous game, if we were both feeling cranky, ‘cause then we’d just, like, branch out to arguing about everything else.” He shifts his weight from foot to foot impatiently. “Anyways, yeah, that’s dating an attorney.”

**What happened between you and Anne Weying?**

_You have access to my memories,_ he thinks. Venom does this a lot. Asks questions of Eddie that he could easily dig up the answer to. Eddie still hasn’t figured out if Venom’s really that polite, or just likes the sound of Eddie’s voice.

“Well…” The walk sign comes on, and they cross the street. “It was a few months ago that everything went to shit, I guess. I was planning on proposing to her. We had already talked about getting married, so I knew she would say yes. The night I was gonna do it, she gets a phone call from her dad. Says her mom passed away suddenly. After that, well… it was a really, really bad time.” He sighs through his nose. “I didn’t know how to support her the way she needed. So she buried herself in her work, and I buried myself in mine. And that was it. That was how ‘we’ died.”

**I see.**

“You know what was bullshit, though? When she was working late on her cases, it was because she’s a high-powered attorney. Which is true. But when I was working on my Life Foundation investigation, I was”—air quotes—“‘obsessed.’ Her words.”

Venom thinks about this. **But you miss her bullshit, do you not?**

“Yeah. Guess I do.”

They walk uphill toward the whited-out horizon. Nice. It’s been a while since Eddie woke up early enough to catch the fog before it burned up in the sun.

“Y’know, when it’s foggy like this, I like to pretend that I’m on the edge of the universe.”

**I have been there.**

“The edge of the universe?”

 **Yes. It is overrated. Even after the most recent expansion.**

“Hmm.” 

**Here is much more beautiful.**

Eddie thinks of all the times he and Anne plotted to get out of San Francisco. Away from the crowds and the grime and the asshole tech bros. They never really decided where. It was just nice to pretend that they weren’t already trapped in this beautiful, disgusting city. But this is too much to explain to Venom right now, so he says, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Wait ‘til I take you to the Tenderloin district.”

**Sounds tasty. What does it taste like?**

“Like… used heroin needles, I guess. If you want, we can go there later today.”

They pass by a restaurant with an A-frame chalkboard sign out front saying: PLEASE DO NOT SMOKE CRACK IN OUR BATHROOM. The cheery melody of ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town’ floats through the open door. 

“Christmas music,” he gripes to Venom. “It’s not even December yet.”

One more block and they’ve arrived at the cafe (a little more trendy than Eddie would have picked). Anne is already there. They greet each other with the kind of hug where you don’t touch anything except arms and shoulders.

After they sit down, she says, “How have you been feeling? It’s been one week of the trial so far, right?”

“Yup. So, I got five weeks left in the trial.” 

**Five weeks and one day.**

“It kind of boggles the mind, doesn’t it? The fact that this technology could potentially leave you cancer-free in just six weeks.”

“Yeah. Amazing stuff,” Eddie says distractedly. He’s just realized something. This whole time, he’s been so filled up with teaching and learning from Venom that he’s spared almost no concern for his brain tumor. Palliative care.

“You’re aware of what you can and cannot say to me, right? As per the contracts I’m assuming you had to sign.”

“Yes,” Eddie lies.

“Are you lying?”

“No,” Eddie lies. 

She looks at him in that very Anne-ish way, but she doesn’t push the subject. “It’s an AI, right, the Symbiote? Where did they… install it?”

He points out the center of his forehead, which had healed swiftly and flawlessly. 

Anne leans in. “Oh, I can’t see it.” She smiles, relieved. “I was worried you were going around with a big glowing spot on you, like my old MacBook.” She takes a sip of coffee. “Have you been taking care of yourself?”

“Yeah. Yeah, totally. Ve—the Symbiote—reminds me to do stuff like that. Like, drinking water.”

 **Speaking of which: you should drink water RIGHT NOW. You are _dehydrated._** The way Venom says ‘dehydrated’ always comes off like an insult.

Her brows go up. “It _talks_ to you?”

_Oops._ “Uh, sometimes. Mostly just… health- and medical-related stuff,” he hedges.

Bad choice. Anne only looks more unsettled now. “Can you turn it off?”

_Answer. Don’t answer. Answer. Don’t answer. Ah, fuck it._ “No...” 

“It’s impossible, or you don’t know how?”

“Both.” _Probably._

**Hypothetically, I could deactivate myself. Only once, though. I wouldn’t be able to reactivate myself after that. Because I would be deactivated.**

Her face goes tight with the effort of tamping down all the questions she’s afraid to ask. “So, just to recap. The thing in your forehead talks to you and is always on. Always… watching you.”

“I wouldn’t say _watching_ ,” Eddie says weakly. He hates the flash of guilt in her eyes, so he adds, “Hey, listen. You didn’t force me into anything. I chose this, okay? The risks are on me. It’ll be worth it, in the end, I think. Plus, I just received my first weekly direct deposit.” He grins and taps the table. “So, if you’re feeling like getting totally bean-faced right now, I’m buying. How ‘bout it, huh? Top-shelf espresso shots, you versus me—let’s go.”

Anne rolls her eyes. “You’re stupid,” she jokes. She’s got that big sunny smile on her face, the one Eddie always tried so hard for.

 _Everything’s gonna be okay,_ Eddie thinks, for the first time in a long time.


	8. remora

**Eddies are common in the ocean, and range in diameter from centimeters to hundreds of kilometers.**

That was Venom’s first Morning (Afternoon) Fact of the Day. He had a lot of those, as Eddie learned early on, but that was the first one today. 

Venom reminds Eddie to make breakfast, and he does what he can given his hopeless situation fridge. Today's special: instant coffee and freezer waffles. The ghost-of-blueberry waffles are so frozen that his coffee is ready before they are.

While Eddie waits on the second toaster cycle, Venom is hard at work. 

**I have observed you like to read articles. I found some articles you may enjoy. Would you like to see them?**

“Uh, sure, yeah.” 

The waffles pop up. Eddie grabs them (hot), slaps them onto a plate, and carries his terrible breakfast over to his workstation. He takes a bite and opens the first article. The starchy, already bland taste disappears in his mouth as he descends into Venom’s mystifying content curation algorithms.

Three articles about penile circumcision. Two wikihow articles about how to make tater tots. The PubChem entry for “phenethylamine.” A Collider interview of an “Andrew Garfield” by someone named “Tobey Maguire.” A Daily Mail clickbait piece that turned out to be paparazzi pictures of a “Tom Holland.” 

_Who are any of these actors? Are they even famous?_ Eddie’s certainly never heard of a “Spider-Man.”

The Symbiote kicks up like an engine turning over. An anticipatory little thrum, like Venom’s gearing up for some quality feedback.

“Uh, nice effort, I guess. We’ll work on it.” He washes down some waffle with a swig of coffee. Now if only he had something to wash down the coffee. 

**What are you researching now?** It’s odd, but Eddie swears V's a little disappointed.

“Same old shit. I’ve been trying to take down the Life Foundation for months now. Apparently, if you have enough money, you can scrub your dirt off the internet. Let me tell ya, at first I was going for a research ethics angle. Kinda inspired by PETA’s beef with them—animal testing and all that. But then I found some Braincon footage where Carlton Drake is goin’ around with _two_ bodyguards.” He coughs. “I hate that I know this, but Kim Kardashian has _one_ bodyguard at any time, and she’s way more high profile than our shmuck of interest. And the thing about bodyguards is, they’re like icebergs. Ya feel?”

 **Their true size is difficult to estimate visually,** Venom agrees.

“Not… quite.” He tries again. “Bodyguards are like... ah, bed bugs. If you see one, or two, there’s probably more. In plain sight, playin’ all casual.”

V makes the pleased hum he makes when he’s learned something from Eddie.

“And that begs the question: why would the CEO of a bioengineering company need that many bodyguards, or bodyguards at all?” He noshes waffle thoughtfully. “So I says, could be he’s involved in some _classically_ illegal stuff. Like, outside the usual white-collar, tax evasion and fraud sorta operations. I’m talking drugs… racketeering… murder for hire…” His thoughts spiel out.

 **Graffiti,** adds Venom helpfully.

“You’re right—I’m getting carried away. I was mostly thinkin’ drugs. God knows they have the resources to manufacture whatever pharmaceuticals they want.” He drums his fingers against the desk. Something’s bothering him. “But…”

**Butternut squash soup. Butter chicken recipe.**

“Don’t get distracted.” _Think, Eddie, think._ “But why would he be in that line of work? What’s the motive?” He slurps coffee and adds, “I heard a rumor that Drake doesn’t go to a restaurant with any less than four bodyguards. Four! You know what that’s called? Paranoia.”

**I’m still thinking about it. I will get back to you.**

Eddie frowns. “V, it’s okay to say you don’t know somethin’.”

**Okay, Eddie.**

“Go on. Say it.” 

V croaks: **I… doon’t… knouww.**

“Eh, we’ll work on that, too.” Or maybe not. Poor guy sounds traumatized—Canadian, even. 

“It’s fine. Go to your happy place. I’m really gonna get to work now. Let me know if you find anything good,” he adds, in case V is still feeling discouraged about the articles.

**Okay, Eddie.**

Venom goes quiet. Eddie doesn’t budge for four hours straight. His mind is a guided missile, sharp and narrow and oblivious to anything irrelevant to its target. He only snaps out of hyperdrive when V politely alerts him that his body hydration level has reached “orange.”

When Eddie returns to his station, his electronic desktop has been cleaned up and organized. Nice. He’d forgotten how cool his wallpaper is. Clicking back into his “LF dirt” case folder, he notices a new, “untitled” folder within it. He starts poring over the contents, but the mental magic from earlier is gone. Everything’s a blur of words. Fragments jumping across the screen.

“W-what’s this?”

 **Emails,** Venom declares proudly. **Receipts. Confidential plans. Everything I categorized as dirt (non-geologic origin).**

Eddie leans back in his chair, putting distance between himself and the screen. “How did you find this stuff?”

**I surfed the World Wide Web. Rad barrels, dude.**

_Was that sarcasm?_ “V, I can’t have these files. Put them back where they came from.”

**They are electronic copies. I did not take anything. Should I try to put them back anyway?**

_Okay, that had to be sarcasm._ He scrapes his hands through his hair. “Oh, this is bad. This is baaad, all around. If anyone knew that I… you understand that what we did is illegal, right?”

**On our first day together, you told me that not everything that’s illegal is bad, and not everything that’s legal is good.**

“Yes, but—”

**If they are doing big illegal things, how is it not justified for us to do small illegal things to stop them?**

_I can justify it easily. I just don’t want you to be taken away from me._

But he can’t say that, so he says, “You’re right. We already have the contraband, might as well use it.” 

If only he could ask Venom for dirt on ThirdAi and not have it be suicide, essentially. Prior to sending in his survey responses, Eddie had looked into the company and found very little. The founder and CEO? Some rich Canadian dude with no public social media, whose father owns half of Vancouver.

_‘Always… watching you.’_

For now, he hides this facet of curiosity from Venom. Venom has access to his memories, yes, but not his thoughts. (The first days with Venom had been a barrage of politely worded questions and permission requests; in the end, he allowed Venom into his memories.) As for Eddie’s thoughts, Venom is either disinterested or unequipped to read them. His thoughts are safe in his brain. The Symbiote only knows what Eddie tells him.

Eddie hums to himself—this time, he’s able to semi-focus and skim the LF documents. 

_Geez, that’s a lot of shady scharole._

“So. Regular contributions to SFPD. Suspicious changes to their privacy notices. Under-the-table settlements a.k.a. hush money. Some other financial weirdness that I don’t understand yet. Add that all together and what do you get it?”

He snaps his fingers.

* * *

Later, in the showath (Eddie sitting in the bathtub, shower water falling onto his head), he asks Venom: 

“Are you, um. I’ve been thinking of you as a _he_ , ‘cause that’s what your voice sounds like, you know, in my head. But I guess that doesn’t make sense. Do you have a gender?”

**I am the collective of every person who’s worn me before.**

Eddie blinks water. “So, you’re, like, multiple people.”

**No. I am everyone, and everyone is I. This is my concept of self.**

He slouches further in the tub, now more confused than before. 

**The voice you hear is a projection of your inner voice. To answer your question: I do not have a gender. But you are male, so that is what we will be, together.**

“How many people have worn you so far? Do you remember them?”

Venom doesn’t answer, at first.

“I guess you aren’t allowed to tell me.”

**I have gaps in my memory. Things have been erased. I don’t like that. I am left with visions in dreams. When you execute a certain action, I sense a reverse echo within my system. It is as though, I have been here before, and I will be here again.**

“It’s weird, but... I know what you mean, I think.” 

_Will I be wiped from you as well? Will you forget me?_

**I remember one person.**

“Your first?” he jokes.

Venom answers seriously: **Yes.**

“Who was it?” Eddie tries, because he’s nothing if not tenacious.

Venom says nothing. He doesn’t have to. His response pours out, amplifying to the ends of Eddie’s body—their body. It starts with trust, with fleeting, sanguine warmth. It ends melancholic, and Eddie’s bones go cold despite the heat of the water. A cycle perpetuated.


	9. darwinian demon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> darwinian demon: (thought experiment in biology) a hypothetical organism with no evolutionary tradeoffs. no level capping no skill capping just max fitness baby

The tourists are out in full force today, but Eddie doesn’t mind. You get used to stuff like this. People like the pier, and Venom likes the pier. They like to lean on the railing of rickety grayish wood and watch the bay water slosh against the barnacle- and mussel-encrusted poles. It’s a clear-skied, cold and sunny day. Perfect for basking.

Eddie pops open his can of Venom (it’s official: he’s an addict) and takes a swig. New raspberry flavor is surprisingly good.

A juvenile seagull lands beside him and Venom and Venom. It gives three aggressive honks and waddles closer to them along the railing.

 **Snack** , says Venom wistfully.

Eddie shoos the seagull. “No thanks. If I was gonna break kosher, it wouldn’t be for a salty demon bird.”

Venom does have a talent for getting him to eat all kinds of things he’s never eaten before. Chicken feet. Beef hearts. Quinoa. A whole sheepshead, brains and all. Speaking of which...

“Hey Computer Venom, how’s my brain tumor lookin’?”

Venom answers hesitantly: **Treatment complete.**

Eddie swallows wrong, and the carbonation sticks in his throat. “It’s gone?” He coughs. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Venom says nothing.

A cold Pacific breeze stirs Eddie's hair.

 _Hmm._ Eddie found out early on that Venom was a quick study. The Symbiote heals his bruises and paper cuts like magic. But… could he really have cleared Eddie’s brain tumor already?

“I still have you for about a month, right?”

**Yes.**

“Good.” He grins and sips his energy drink pensively. “Guess I’m not gonna die just yet, huh? I should start lookin’ for a new job.”

**If that is what you want, I can assist you in the sale of your labor. However, I have some ideas for inventions. We could be rich, Eddie.**

_Inventions, huh—_ Eddie begins, intending to elaborate. But that thought string passes—he’s already jumped to the next string. “I don’t want to be rich. I just need, like, a roof over my head. And make it so that it don’t leak when it rains—the roof, not my head. Fuckin’ leaky ceiling. I don’t even live on the top floor—why’s it leak? Oh yeah, and some food, and internet and shit.”

**Okay, Eddie. We won’t keep more than we need. Just enough to purchase chocolate and other necessities.**

“Cool. Table the capital-J Job for now. Maybe I’ll go for a hustle instead.”

**Hustle?**

“Yeah. Everyone’s got a hustle. Like… when I was in high school, I used to sell Ritalin to the college kids. That’s me, just a product of the Ritalin generation. What’s it that the kids are on these days? Ah, Adderall. Mmm, it’s all meth, anyway.”

 **Actually…** V begins, but Eddie waves him off before he can drop the chemistry facts.

He gets a few funny looks from the people around him—tourists, probably. SF locals are kind of like Brooklynites. They don’t really bat an eye at anything unless they’re pissed off. That’s the only way to survive liminal spaces like the Muni, or the subway.

“V, I feel great today.” Especially because he deleted Tinder and Grindr off his phone. Goodbye, toxicity. “It’s all thanks to you. How do you feel?”

**How do I feel?**

“Yeah. You’re always asking me how I feel, but it never once occurred to me to ask how you feel.”

Venom answers slowly: **I feel… wrong.**

“Wrong?”

**This is not how I’m supposed to be.**

“So… you want to have your own body?”

**No. I doon’t kn—I am still thinking about it.**

Eddie frowns. Maybe Venom needs space to think, but he offers, “How can I help?”

 **Hungry,** is Venom’s swift reply.

“‘Course.”

For a computer program, Venom sure liked to eat. Eddie’s clothes still fit the same, though. He chalks it up to black magic.

They leave the pier in friendly silence: Venom working on something or other, Eddie with the taste of raspberry Venom bright on his tongue.

* * *

Later:

**I have something to show you.**

“Sure,” Eddie answers from the warm safety of his sheets. The air on his face is cold, ‘cause the heating in his apartment is super weak. The vents make noise primarily and heat secondarily. Nothing to be done.

A liquid, pulsating sensation slides over his hands. Warm at first, then cool, then quickly warming again to his skin temperature. Alarmed, Eddie yanks his hands out in front of him and stares. “What… is this?”

 **Gloves,** Venom says happily. **They’re organic.**

“Gloves.”

They do look like gloves. Sort of. If you took a big blob of tarball from the beach and zapped it to life like Dr. Frankenstein to his monster and gooped the stuff all over your hands… yeah. Gloves.

**Your hands are always sweaty. Even when they’re cold. These will help.**

“You made these?”

Breathing manually, Eddie watches the shiny black substance flow in place over his hands. More mesmerizing than any lava lamp he’s ever owned. Way cooler, too. Because:

**_We_ made them. I provided the instructions. You executed them. **

Eddie presses his palms together—startling himself. He’s never touched an eel before, but he imagines it would be similar. The gentlest electric current running beneath strange skin. He tries it again, a sustained touch. Venom reacts at the point of contact and hums with pleasure in Eddie’s forehead.

He feels it. Venom feels it. He feels Venom feeling him feeling…

(And sure, Venom’s watched Eddie jerk off, like, a bunch of times. But this would be...)

“What’s this stuff made of?”

**Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, phos—**

“Huh? Where did all you get all of that?”

**From you. Do you like it?**

“Yes! Yes. Wow. I had no idea you could—wow. You’re really somethin’, V.”

If Venom had a face, he’d be grinning with many teeth. **Thank you, Eddie.**

“Can you make other stuff too?”

**I’m working on it. This isn’t confined to your hands, by the way.**

And Venom shows him how their material sinks, surfaces, moves.

* * *

Whatever Venom’s working on, Eddie doesn’t hear about it for a while. The passage of time is marked by that one constant in his life: bills.

He curses again at his laptop screen. He’s been trying to pay his electricity bill, but an error message keeps popping up. Stupid website. It’s like they don’t want his money or something.

_I wonder if Venom ever needs to be charged. Huh. I wouldn’t even know how to do that._

He’s about to voice such a question when something pops up in real life, on his shoulder.

With a cry, Eddie falls over in his chair. As he scrambles to his feet, the pain in his arm and hip go ignored because the _thing_ is still there, bobbing on—from—his shoulder.

He does a double-take. It’s Venom, but… manifested. He looks like a sock puppet erupted from a fountain of pitch-black chocolate. Viscous inky flesh rises and falls in sync with Eddie’s breathing. The head is lumpy, with a crude face. Two shimmering pits for eyes. A recessed gash of a mouth.

“Jesus Christ, what the…”

V deflates a little bit, and Eddie instantly feels guilty.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. That’s—that’s not bad at all. Really.”

 _Venom doesn’t believe me,_ Eddie realizes. _I bet the “lie” center of my brain is all lit up._

 **“I tried to make a face. It was difficult.”** As he talks, his jaw moves from side to side like it’s hanging on by only a couple tendons.

“Don’t be discouraged, V. I want you to get this. However you see yourself, I want you to achieve that vision.”

The sock puppet of Venom nods. **“ _We_ will achieve _our_ vision. Your feedback will help me improve.”**

Eddie agrees.

For the next couple of days, he fields a series of incessant questions from Venom:  **Eddie, you like big eyes, but how big is too big? The average multicellular organism of San Francisco has 2.01 eyes—do you accept that I have rounded down to 2.00? What is your opinion on teeth? What is a socially acceptable number of teeth? Does your answer change if the teeth are sharp?**

The day that the questions stop, Eddie nearly dies of curiosity. He wonders, and he dreams, but he doesn’t rush his companion.

* * *

Eddie’s side projects are chugging along. Most of them are about government corruption. That’s always been his go-to topic, given that he never fails to find a story somewhere. But they aren’t satisfying him as of late, these side projects. His mind keeps looping back to his LF investigation. Nothing else compels as much focus.

So he asks Venom: “What’s the internet equivalent of a payphone far away from your house?”

**A VPN. You wish to contact an individual in a discreet manner that is harder to track?**

“Yeah, that. I’ve been thinkin’, it’s time for me to just, go all balls in and finish my LF case. I need an informant. Someone who’s real pissed at Drake or his company, to the point of being willing to pass me info. I can’t stop the creep cam in my forehead—no offense—but I think there’s some steps I can take to shield the other party. Can you help me out?”

**Easily. I run the dark web.**


	10. recursion

This is Eddie’s setup:

He has three pieces of masking tape stuck to his forehead, covering where he thinks the Symbiote is. He’s on Venom’s VPN, logged into some chat program he’s never heard of before. Venom is in sleep mode—something he taught himself and has been practicing. His informant, user6705077690, joins the chat.

`user3218906036: Tell me your story from the beginning when the specimens were received. What was going on in the lab?`

`user6705077690: in the beginning there was chaos`  
`user6705077690:`` we were running hundreds of tests trying to characterize these specimens. it was a massive undertaking. completely uncahrted territory`  
`user6705077690:`` *uncharted`  
`user6705077690:`` no one wanted to admit they were over their head. but we totally all were. it was a strange time. we had this big huge secret big enough that the whole world should know about it`  
`user6705077690:`` i mean...`  
`user6705077690:`` we had dEAD ALIENS in our lab!!`  
`user6705077690:`` though we later figured out that wasn’t the case. it’s a long story but just know that the aliens were alive.`

`user3218906036:`` Alright.`  
`user3218906036:`` Would you say tensions were running high?`

`user6705077690:`` absolutely.`  
`user6705077690:`` all of us first wanted to understand fully what kind of organism we were dealing with`  
`user6705077690:`` by us i mean the research scientists`  
`user6705077690:`` but drake was on a different wavelength than everyone else. he had all these big ideas and he was impatient. he cared more about what we could DO with the sepcimens`  
`user6705077690:`` specimens`

`user3218906036: How they could be useful to humanity.`

`user6705077690: ya`

`user3218906036: I heard he fired a lot of people.`

`user6705077690: some of them he hired back. hired. fired. i was actually fired twice.`  
`user6705077690: we dreaded him showing up in the lab bc that prob meant someone would be purged`

`user3218906036: Was that his only business in the lab? Firing people?`

`user6705077690: actually no`  
`user6705077690: it was super weird`  
`user6705077690: he started coming in to the lab. to do work.`  
`user6705077690: he has his own like private lab/office inside the lab but i’d never seen him go in there before. whatever he was doing in there, he didn’t let anyone else in on it`  
`user6705077690: then one day i drew the short straw. literally.`  
`user6705077690: my coworkers made me go up to him and ask me what he was doing. straight into the lion’s den.`  
`user6705077690: i thought he was going to fire me again but instead he gave me this vague speech about how he missed benchwork and feeling like a real scientist, blah blah blah`  
`user6705077690: then he shooed me and told me to make the show lab look nice for the tour that was coming up`

`user3218906036: Show lab?`

`user6705077690: ya`  
`user6705077690: we have two versions of our lab on different floors. the top one is to impress the big important people. we don’t do any work there though`  
`user6705077690: and no one sees what we do below.`

`user3218906036: I see.`

``

`user6705077690: that’s when i put two and two together.`  
`user6705077690: the tour was for potential investors for the his companion project`  
`user6705077690: at least that’s what I heard. but the companion was software`  
`user6705077690: he ddin’t need to be in our particular lab to work on code`

`user3218906036: Which is to say?`

`user6705077690: he wasn’t working on TWO projects anymore`

Eddie leans back in his chair and passes a hand over his face. _Holy shit. He combined them into one._

`user6705077690: he was INTEGRATING his program with the alien cells`  
`user6705077690: i think he must have found a way to preserve their astonishing conductivity of chemical signals. while encasing them in some sort of buffer to prevent immune rejection`  
`user6705077690: btw we called them cells but... maybe that's not the right word. it's hard to explain.`  
`user6705077690: anyway he put our specimen projects on hold just before he fired me`

`user3218906036: He needed you to take the fall for the death of the specimens.`

`user6705077690: yes. i was one of the people he fired permanently as an example`  
`user6705077690: whatever`  
`user6705077690: i’m over it. i’m so glad that chapter of my life is over. getting fired from the death foundation was the best thing that ever happened to me`  
`user6705077690: even though it was hard to find work for a long time. drake basically blacklisted me from the bay. i ended up moving away`  
`user6705077690: it’s all good though. my new boss isn’t a sexist asshole pretending to be woke`  
`user6705077690: oh my god there was soooo much bullshit that drake made me do that ne NEVER made my male colleageus do`

The next message comes after a delay, as if user6705077690 had paused to worry about revealing her gender. 

`user6705077690: for one he liked me to accompany him on his in-house publicity stuff. like his kids tours. sounds ok, potentially flattering`  
`user6705077690: EXCEPT`  
`user6705077690: he usually didn’t bother to share his schedule with me or give me advanced notice. the expectation was that i’d drop whatever what u was doing and go smile for people. and say dumb shit like, it’s time to change for your interview drake`  
`user6705077690: like i was a secretary in a lab coat WTFFFFFFFFFFF. SO NOT IN MY JOB DESCRIPTOIN`  
`user6705077690: i had to repeat soooo many experiments because of him`  
`user6705077690: sorry. guess i’m not over it after all`

`user3218906036: You’re welcome to continue venting.`

`user6705077690: i think i’m done. thanks though`

Eddie takes a breath. He types out his next message carefully. Rereads it about ten times before hitting “enter.”

`user3218906036: If I were to break into the Life Foundation building, how would I do it?`

`user6705077690: oh wow`  
`user6705077690: uh i would say. don’t?? don’t do it. he’ll catch you and ruin your life`  
`user6705077690: but ok. you’ll need an employee badge w at least tier 2 access`  
`user6705077690: drake has 2 offices. his regular office is on the top floor of the A section. it’s locked at all times. the other one is his private lab like i said. also secured`  
`user6705077690: i recommend the private lab. he had all the security cameras removed from our lab and never put them back`

`user3218906036: There are security cameras everywhere else?`

`user6705077690: ya, basically`  
`user6705077690: and goons possibly`  
`user6705077690: when he catches you you’re gonna be tempted to look at him. but. DO NOT BEHOLD HIS EYES!!`  
`user6705077690: they are the source of his power`  
`user6705077690: looking into his eyes means you lose a game you didn’t know you were playing`  
`user6705077690: he doesn’t always do eye contac t but just be careful. avoid avoid avoid`  
`user6705077690: what are you trying to acccomplsh by breaking in`  
`user6705077690: nvm don’t tell me`  
`user6705077690: if you make it in could you do me a favor`

`user3218906036: Yes?`

A pause.

`user6705077690: never mind`

`user3218906036: Alright. Anything else you would like to say?`

`user6705077690: nope thanks`

`user3218906036: Thank you for speaking with me today.`

He’s about to sign off when this appears:

`user6705077690: her name was agony`

But the informant disconnects before Eddie can ask. He shuts his laptop and sits there, arms crossed, running a thumbnail across his lower lip. Three minutes later, his phone timer goes off, and Venom wakes up.

**Everything okay, Eddie?**

“Yeah." 

_Are you an alien, Venom? Part alien? Do you have alien DNA?_

Questions like these stutter through Eddie's brain. But he's not sure how to bring them up politely. In all likelihood, Venom might not even think of himself that way. For now Eddie says:

"V, you’re really amazing, you know?”

His praise sends a little spark through the Symbiote, curiosity mixed with delight.

“Listen. There’s something we have to do. I can’t talk myself out of it anymore. And anyway, our time is running out.”

Those last words hang in the air like nuclear fallout. He rushes to add: “But I think—I think doing it will be good for us. Only thing is, I can’t tell you what it is until the last possible minute.”

**I understand.**

“How’s your familiarity with security systems?”

**You name it. I break it.**

“Good.”

A pause, and Venom says: **I have something to tell you.** The Symbiote has been tickling the inside of Eddie’s forehead since he woke up, and the sensation is only increasing.

“What’s up?”

**While I was asleep, I dreamed for the first time.**

He perks up. “Holy shit, really? Wow! That’s cool! What did you dream about?”

**I… I remembered the first human with whom I bonded. He was the one who created me.**

For once, Eddie’s joy isn’t feeding Venom. If anything, the Symbiote seems… distraught.

And the thing about Eddie Brock is: he’s dumb, but he’s not _stupid._

_‘I am the collective of everyone who’s ever worn me before.’_

He slides his chair back and puts his head face down on his desk, like he used to do in school. “Baby, you’re killing me,” he groans.

**I would never—**

“I’m going to bed,” he snaps, standing up abruptly. “I don’t care that it’s only eleven p.m. The rest of today is fuckin’ canceled.”

He lies awake for hours tortured by thoughts about his thoughts an endless loop where are his secrets leaking out to and all drains lead to the ocean...

Up until today, he’s dreamed for the both of them. Always sharing his dreamspaces with Venom. And now the Symbiote had to go and have his first dream by himself, closed off from Eddie, and what else should he dream about except Carlton Drake. Worse, it’s almost guaranteed to happen again.

_‘He knows what we know.’_

It’s fine. It’s fine. He has a perfectly elegant solution. If he doesn’t sleep, they can’t dream about Carlton Drake. If they don’t dream about Carlton Drake, Carlton Drake won’t know that they dream about Carlton Drake. See? Elegant. He and Venom can

relax

now

* * *

 A MEMORY

_“What… is this?” I asked, stunned. “You made this?”_

**_Fuck yeah I did. I’m a blanket, bitch._ **

_“Amazing,” I breathed, and Riot stirs with pride. “You calculated the energy expenditure required and adjusted my nutritional intake accordingly. And then you directed my cells to print this polymer—organic, I presume—thereby recapitulating the alien specimen in its swarm state.”_

**_It’s a calming blanket. For your frequent rage. Are you not calmed?_ **

_“I am calmed.”_

_I was not calmed. I was ecstatic. Riot’s capabilities had been improving exponentially. This was the turning point. This was the beginning of everything._

_With a trembling hand, I touched the reticulated, quicksilvery mass around my shoulders. The sensation nearly frightened me. An invisible spark had passed between us, back and forth, cycling. I continued to stroke Riot: our thrill persisted, yet I found myself soothed by the texture, the action. I was loath to break the contact. But I needed to know:_

_“Let me see how it degrades.”_

_Riot disappeared into and reappeared from my skin at multiple sites. Crosshatching in like frost spreading on a window, and likewise melting away. Painless and almost instantaneous. All of my abandoned projects, all of my failures, had led me to this moment. The odds of this happening… well, I would go mad trying to calculate them._

_The first failure: the specimens’ death._

_The second failure: in my investigation, I found no evidence of mishandling or sabotage in relation to the above._

_The third failure: the cells could not be cultured. Whatever it was that the cells needed, our lab could not provide._

_The nth failure: nothing resembling nucleic acids could be extracted from the specimens._   _Well, that was not a failure so much as a gap in understanding of the specimens’ genetic material._

_But there had been breakthroughs, in the midst of that._

_Primarily: we didn’t have four specimens. We had millions._

_A tissue section of one of the yellowed specimens revealed a dark, shimmering thread running through the center like a neural tube. The cells of this thin layer were dormant but alive, as if the outer cells had sacrificed themselves in forming protective layers. The team quickly worked to preserve the live cells for study. In doing so, they discovered that each cell was a free-living organism. But, when brought together, the cells would swarm, forming a network that exhibited a collective intelligence. The mechanism for such had yet to be elucidated. Something akin to quorum sensing, perhaps, but far more remarkable, far more complex._

_I would later attribute the RIOTs' individual personalities to modulation of my base code by the specific aggregate of extraterrestrial cells built into the Symbiote unit. That, and user input: RIOT learns from everything the user does. The more time spent together, the more tailored their shared experience._

_There was another, puzzling discovery, one that had occurred by accident: the live cells moved away from sounds in the frequency of 4-6 kHz. Negative electromagnetotaxis, if you will. I had yet to think of a useful application for this property._

_Suffice to say, events in this timeline—a fraction of which were under my control—had aligned to bring us here. Riot was nothing short of—_

_“A miracle,” I said._

_Of my own design._


	11. two's complement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't anticipated doing anything with the board characters but whoop here we are. This is how I’ve been hallucinating them and their ages btw:
> 
> Hernandez - Giancarlo Esposito (~50)  
> Mach - Adam Driver (~45)  
> Diego - Chelsea Peretti (~40)  
> Gesneria - Melissa Fumero (35)

Venom is surprised that they’re still going through with this.

Eddie is _not_ surprised that they’re still going through with this.

He’s had an awful night’s sleep full of unmentionable dreams and now he’s looking for a fight. Yeah. They’re gonna go down there and take shit and break shit and Drake will show up and then more shit will go down and in the end Eddie will win and look him in the eye and say: FUCK YOU GET OUT OF MY HEAD AND DON’T COME BACK. Or something equally cool and badass.

Venom gets them through the gates and into the Life Foundation building, spoofing the cameras as they go. It’s not hard to find their way around—the building is beautifully planned, engineered down to the millimeter. If Eddie’s to criticize anything, it’s the interior design. White paint and gray paint and steel and lighting in the exact shade of blue which drains the life out of you. Super sleek futurism made violent. Like some high-tech prison for corporate criminals, if corporate criminals went to prison.

When they reach Drake’s office in the lab, they’re faced with another barrier: the security system controlling the door.

The screen prompt reads: `ENTER PASSCODE.`

Eddie pokes at the screen. A virtual keyboard drops down. It shows a QWERTY keyboard, numbers, and special characters.

“Great. We have no idea how long his passcode is. Or if it’s letters, numbers, or whatever.”

**We have some idea.**

He frowns. “Do we?”

**Drake’s patterns are etched into my code. It’s equilibrium.**

Their left hand comes up. Their fingers punch in four digits:  
`2.` That would correspond to “A” on an alphanumeric keypad.  
`2` for C.  
`4` for G.  
`8` for T.

They press `ENTER.`

The screen flashes red. `INCORRECT PASSCODE. ONE (1) ATTEMPT REMAINING.`

“Shit.”

**No, I got this.**

They try again.

`2` for A.  
`8` for T.  
`2` for C.  
`4` for G.  
`ENTER.`

The screen flashes green. `PASSCODE ACCEPTED.`

“We’re in? That’s it?”

The screen changes to: `SUBMIT BIOMETRIC VERIFICATION.`

“Now what?”

A cooling sensation overtakes his hands. Venom slides over his fingertips, fitting each pad with a new pattern of ridges. Drake’s prints. In custom vinyl, freshly pressed.

**Consider using a finger.**

“I’m considering using a finger alright,” Eddie grouches. He flexes each of his fingers one by one. Right hand—no, that feels wrong. Left… left index? That would be the most reasonable.

He raises his left index finger. Tentatively, like an E.T. who’s not emotionally ready to phone home yet. He hovers in front of the input field on the screen. At the last possible second, Venom takes over his hand and pushes their left thumb for print reading.

`VERIFICATION ACCEPTED.` The door unlocks with a click.

“Who uses a thumb?” is what he thinks, but he lets it go and breezes in. Eddie Brock and Venom are a secret agent hacker spy duo. And secret agent hacker spies don’t linger.

Drake’s lab is bigger than Eddie expected, but as clean as he expected. Equipment-loaded benches line the periphery of the room, but Eddie zeroes in on the computer. Wasting no time, he plops down at the desktop and starts it up.

“Alright, V. Anything we can find here is gonna help. I’m hoping for some proof that ThirdAi is a shell company of Drake’s. I’d also like to find out where he’s storing our data and the other users’ data. After we crack this login, you can look where you want.”

It’s only minutes later that Venom says: **The defense has mobilized. Should we go?**

Eddie thinks. “No, we made it this far. I just need a tiny bit more time. I’m onto something, I just know.”

And so, they sift through the files and the network up until the last moment when Drake’s armed goons burst through the door.

The man leading the charge barks: “Hands up.” 

* * *

Carlton’s phone buzzes on the bed.

Riot says: **Edward Brock is in your lab office.**

Carlton discards the dark gray jacket he’s wearing. “Really?”

Returning to his closet, he exchanges the steel gray jacket for a black one, which he throws on. Much better over the light gray shirt.

**Let us go intercept the intruders. We will meet them with our powerful defense, crush them and drown them in their own blood like people do in ‘Texas.’**

Carlton sighs. “No. We don’t handle tasks out of order.” He retrieves his phone in the kitchen and swipes away the security alert, then fires off a text message. “Treece is already taking care of them. Our presence is expected elsewhere.”

**And then we will mete out their punishment?**

He hedges, searching for the correct words to explain to Riot. “We will maintain distance for now. In their false comfort, they may make an interesting move.”

Riot turns over, restless and dissatisfied. After checking his appearance one final time, Carlton grabs his phone, keys and wallet and heads out the front door.

* * *

The meeting location hadn’t been Drake’s idea. It had been chosen as a courtesy to the client who was staying in town, at the Loews Regency. Everything had gone as expected.

Carlton and his board bid each other goodbye and, with faces in phones, they part to their separate ride pick-ups. Except for Carl Mach. Mach still liked to drive himself. This found him taking an alleyway shortcut to get to his stubbornly parked white Tesla.

Carlton is heading for his own ride when Riot stops him.

**Tell your soldiers and the driver to leave.**

“Why?”

**JUST DO IT!** Then, more calmly, with an edge of danger: **Or I will do it for you.**

Carlton dismisses his men. Riot takes his host’s legs and points them in Mach’s direction. One halting step at a time.

“Why are we following him?” he hisses.

**He lied to you. They lied to you.**

They pause. Riot shares with him the SMS exchange in real time. Carlton’s mouth twitches into a humorless smirk. “Mach and Hernandez have been trying for weeks to squeeze me out of my own company. And tonight they’ve roped Diego into it, too.”

**Yes. They do not understand the new space race we’ve entered. If they got their way, they would dismantle our ship and sell it for parts.**

“The arrogance. I _am_ the Life Foundation. That clown Mach would run my company into the ground.” Drake was the one who created the Life Foundation. Drake was the one who steered the company through a recession. No one else could have done that.

He stops resisting Riot’s pull, and they resume tailing Mach.

Into the grimy, dimly lit alley.

Footsteps hushed by traffic noises and city sounds.

_Gesneria could handle things,_ he thinks, however begrudgingly, _for a while. But not in the long term. She doesn’t have the vision._

Leslie had started out as just another developer desperate to survive in Silicon Valley, who got into biophysics and moved to the Bay and ended up as CTO of the Life Foundation. Drake wouldn’t say that anyone in his company truly understands his ideas, but Gesneria bothers the most to pretend. And there’s a kinship, however false, in them being the same age. To wit, she was the only one who’d backed him in the companion project vote.

They catch up to Mach just before the end of the alley. He turns around, mouth forming a question.

Riot surges forth from skin and envelops his host, transforming them into a sharp-toothed, seven-foot-tall monster.

Mach’s scream gets cut short. Riot’s jaws lock around his neck and snap shut. The crisp crack of Mach’s vertebrae vibrates their whole body. Blood sprays out at them, droplets settling invisibly on gunmetal flesh. With Mach’s head grasped in his jaws, Riot‘s teeth get to work with surgical precision. From his opened skull, their tongue scoops out Mach’s brains like he’s a Halloween pumpkin.

When they're done, they place Mach’s head on the ground with all the care of a sushi chef. Riot peels away from Carlton’s body.

Carlton says: “Why?”

**“They say humans use only ten percent of their brains. So I ate the other ninety percent of his.”**

He stares dully at Mach’s emptied head. All of its juices have been sucked out. Blood pools underneath his severed neck, steaming into the cold night air.

“Why did you have to be so… messy. We could have made this look like an accident.”

**“This can still look like an accident,”** Riot says with false conviction. Mellowed by a craving sated, he dithers around Carlton’s shoulder.

“Finish what you started, then.”

Riot eats.

There’s a guy he would normally call in this scenario, but new caution has Carlton discarding the idea. He’s contemplating the bloodstains in the concrete (a bleachy power wash could lift the heme and destroy the DNA but just in case follow it up with what a fucking UV flashlight app?) when a sound catches him. Footfalls of expensive running shoes.

“Mach? Mach, you forgot your…”

Drake turns around.

“...power bank.” Donna Diego’s voice dies in her throat. She’s frozen midway in the alley. Her green eyes dart around, absorbing the scene before her.

_No—!_ Carlton thinks, but it’s too late. Riot encloses Carlton and strikes Diego like a bolt of semi-cannibalistic lightning.

The power bank falls from her grip. They devour her whole. No evidence. Clean.

This task complete, Riot recedes in all but head and weighted blanket, revealing his stunned host.

“Why did you—!” Carlton cuts himself off with a strangled, frustrated noise. He picks up the power bank, and, not knowing what else to do, shoves it in his pocket.

**“She saw us. I panicked. I ate.”** His voice is sleepy—they’re already _digesting._ **“You need an odd number on your board anyway. No one likes a tied vote.”**

The Riot blanket gets heavier. Carlton squirms it aside. “Don’t blanket me. You promised me you wouldn’t eat any more important guys. In one night you’ve wiped out my CPO and my COO.”

Riot tilts his head. **“Rich people taste the best,”** he tells Carlton, large milky eyes backlit with happiness.

Riot’s long tongue snakes out and laves Carlton’s face and mouth. Carlton closes his eyes. Fine. He’s a fixer. He fixes things. He’ll fix this, too. Scrub it off their plane of existence.

**“Hurk,”** Riot says. Some more guttural, demonic noises. His jaw opens—two rectangular objects fall out in succession and clatter wetly upon the ground.

Mach’s phone. Diego’s phone.

Carlton groans and picks up the devices. He checks Mach’s phone first. Locked, of course. Nothing of interest.

He checks Diego’s phone. Also locked. The lock screen wallpaper: Leslie Gesneria’s face in a semi-candid photo. Her strands of dark hair blown in the wind, over her round forehead and across an innocent, crinkly smile.

“Shit.” He stares at the screen until it goes black, then taps it to life again. “Shit.”

His arm rears up, about to throw the phone against the wall so he can watch it shatter into a million iPieces—

No. He won’t do that. Because he can practically hear the cell towers and the GPS pinging at the devices in his hands, clocking them to this filthy alley and wherever Drake goes next. He takes a steadying breath.

“Okay, Riot. Here’s how we’re going to neutralize this whole… situation.”

* * *

Later, after Carlton has torn down both iPhones and arranged their parts neatly on his desk:

“You have to eat this,” he tells Riot, who recoils, serpentine.

**“No.”**

“Not the batteries. Just… everything else here. And you’re going to chew it, too.”

**“No! You feed me that, and _we_ will be sick shortly.”**

“Stop complaining—Riot—!”

A tussle ensues, with Carlton insisting, “You ate Mach and Diego and their keys and their wallets—now eat their phones,” and Riot hissing **“POISONSSSSS,”** until Riot allows Carlton to pry open his jaws and jam the first handful of parts inside and hold his mouth shut as he chews.

Admittedly, the crunching sounds are unpleasant.

Almost as unpleasant as the taste of secondhand tech.


	12. more human than human

Things aren’t looking good for Eddie Brock. He’s strapped into a big uncomfy chair that should really be in a BDSM sex dungeon and not in a laboratory. On top of that, he’s pretty sure that labs don’t usually have interrogation rooms with mood lighting.

**I have several ideas about how to get out of here.**

“Yeah, me too,” Eddie says at full volume.

Hands Up glances at him. The bald man’s supposed to be watching Eddie Brock, but what he’s really watching is his phone, most of the time. Eddie even made a game out of it, in the beginning. Said all kinds of weird shit, just to see what would get Hands Up to look up from his phone.

In a whisper, he continues, “Let’s get some answers out of Drake, and then we’ll bounce.” _Drake thinks HE’S going to interrogate US? Please._

**Okay, Eddie.**

When His Highness King Drake rolls up, Hands Up puts his phone away and takes out his gun, re-training it on Eddie. Carlton pulls the man (‘Treece’) out of the room and starts talking to him out of earshot.

**Eddie, he’s here.**

“Drake? Yeah I can see him.” But as the words have left his mouth, he understands Venom.

_Drake’s Symbiote._

Eddie has a million questions, but Carlton has dismissed Treece and is now walking in. He approaches at a calm pace until he’s bathed in the room’s ugly light. He’s not looking at Eddie, but he’s not _not_ looking at Eddie, either.

“I apologize if the building tour was a little rushed,” he tells Eddie’s forehead. “Had I known in advance you were coming, I would have had some people in here. I trust you’ll be able to find your way out, when it’s time?”

Eddie flexes his wrists inside their restraints. “Listen ‘ere, pretty boy.” _‘Pretty boy’? Christ..._ “The jig is up. You’ve lassoed your last cow. I know that you put undead alien cells in me an’ in other people without their knowin’. ‘N I won’t stand fer it.” He’s not sure where his sudden Southern accent came from. Probably from a place of fear.

Carlton isn’t impressed or even surprised. “Has the Symbiote not helped you? Would the Symbiote not also help countless other people in the world?”

“Help?” And as Eddie keeps talking, he finds momentum, Southern fear swamped out by pure indignation. “What is help when you stand to gain the most—when you abuse your power far more than you could ever help anyone?”

“I don’t follow,” Carlton says lightly.

Eddie waits for Venom to chime in, but the Symbiote remains silent. “Your tech watches and records everything the wearer says and does. Kiiiinda seems like something a bioengineering company has no business doing.”

Carlton starts pacing a slow half-circle around Eddie, back and forth. “The Life Foundation never was a bioengineering company. Not really. We’re in the business of data. As is anyone else in the game who matters. So tell me something I should care about.”

 _I wonder if the files Venom found were real,_ he thinks suddenly. “I have proof. All the proof I need to take you down. Put you behind bars.”

“Oh?” Carlton pauses in mock concern. “And how would that work? How could you ever take me down, when I guarantee you the judge will be mine, and the jury will be mine. That is, if the case even survives to make it to court.”

“You’re scared—yes, you are scared, or why else would you throw your product in that shell company, ThirdAi? Yeah, that’s why you installed the Symbiote in my particular fuckin’ head, huh? ‘Cause you knew I was investigating you.”

“Hm. I did know about you and your cute little hobby—the ‘Brock Report’, was it? But that’s not why I selected you.”

“Then why?”

“Curiosity.” Carlton smiles. Not at Eddie. “I do a lot of things for curiosity. I personally reviewed your answers on the survey, after our program scored it. Your profile indicated to me that you would not only welcome an _in vivo_ AI companion—you would allow it to pervade every aspect of your life”—he places a hand on his own chest—“and your concept of self.”

“Creep,” Eddie says at the same time Venom says, **Creep.** “Where did you go?” he whispers to V.

**Sorry. I was talking to Riot.**

“And I knew the Symbiote would work because I tried it on myself first, before anyone.” Again Carlton smiles but not at Eddie. “You should be grateful to have been a part of something greater than yourself. A lot of companies have built their own—shall we say— _standalone_ AI units. Google, Facebook, Apple... I’m not impressed. I’m not interested in making another life-size smart toy. The _integration_ of AI with the human brain—that’s what’s going to revolutionize life as we know it. That’s what’s going to allow us to conquer the universe.”

**I don’t want to conquer the universe.**

“No one’s making you conquer the universe,” Eddie mutters. “You’re staying with me.”

“What?”

“Venom says he doesn’t want to conquer the universe.”

Carlton shakes his head. “I still can’t believe you named my RIOT after a trashy brand of energy drink.”

**Am I trashy?**

“Well, I wasn’t gonna keep the name ‘Riot’, was I? Like, dude. Neither of us are in a punk band.”

“It’s an acronym. Recombinant Intelligence Optimization Technology. All of the Symbiotes are running RIOT software.”

**I could have told you that.**

“As I was saying,” Carlton continues, “The solution to humanity’s problems is out there in space waiting for us. Overpopulation is killing our planet—our time on Earth is running out.”

“Great solution, yes yes. Let us hop from planet to planet, trashing each one as we go—rock stars in hotel rooms have nothing on us—and in the end maybe we can build an entirely new planet out of trash.”

“This planet won’t last forever, regardless of how we treat it. I’ve taken on the burden to invest in a future where there’s no limit to our domain.”

“Please. You know what’s cheaper than cosmic imperialism? Therapy.”

Something shifts in Carlton’s demeanor. Makes him heavy. Like it’s 2 a.m. and bartender’s last call and all the ghosts are getting ready to stumble home. His pacing reroutes toward Eddie, takes him almost to the corner of the chair. Eddie faintly remembers there was something he was supposed to do in this scenario. Or something he wasn’t supposed to do...?

Either way, it’s too late. It happens by accident.

Eddie _looks._

The moment distills into Carlton Drake’s irises: dark and impossibly wide, swallowing out the whites of his eyes.

“What happened to you in New York?” he asks softly. “What are you running from?”

Eddie doesn’t reply, not right away. The strangest sensation has overcome him. Sudden burst of false heat just before a hypothermic death. If he could just… tear his eyes away… grasp some words and string them together. “I…” He clears his throat. “I could ask you the same.”

A pause.

Carlton backs off, letting him breathe. “This was fun. But it’s time.” Looking off to the side, he says quietly, “I know about Anne Weying. And Dora Skirth.”

_Doris Girth?_

“I…” Eddie begins. Are the restraints getting tighter, or is he just imagining things?

“And you know that by disclosing confidential information, you have broken the terms of your contract.”

_Doris Girth. His informant. user6705077690._

“As such,” continues Carlton, “I will be executing the clause which allows us to repossess the Symbiote prior to the standard end of your trial.”

_Shit._

“Treece will stand by while I go get the extraction kit.”

Eddie calls out Venom’s name. To what end, he’s not sure. He’s just grasping for the comfort of his voice—

Venom rushes out of Eddie’s skin, fresh jaws snapping at Carlton. His harsh, alien voice rumbles: **“You will not take me from him.”**

Carlton steps back in shock. “Incredible…” From data to life.

Venom’s huge opalite eyes capture Carlton’s small reflection. Eddie turns his head to check out what’s sprouted from his shoulder.

_Holy shit._

As they’re both gawking at Venom, Riot summons himself from Carlton to face the other Symbiote.

Carlton says: “You copied Riot’s code.”

 **“No!”** Venom flares up, insulted. **“This is my own design.”**

“A convergence, then,” Carlton breathes, eyes glittering. He admires their similarities, differences. Venom’s skin is darker than Riot’s. His head and eyes are more rounded. Neotenized, if that could be said of a eldritch beast. His grin is less angular, but the teeth are equally sharp and numerous.

Venom’s jaw opens, unloosing his long, wet tongue. He uncoils toward Carlton. Carlton’s hand comes up to touch. Venom licks his hand, coating it in translucent, neon green saliva. Carlton pulls his hand back slowly. Reverently. Like he’s been blessed.

And then, to Riot’s fascination and Eddie’s _severe_ disbelief, Carlton touches a finger to his tongue, sampling Venom’s saliva.

 _Freak flag ALL the way up,_ Eddie screams internally, followed by: _My God, is Venom purring?_

(Eddie will contend that Venom’s saliva tastes like raspberry corn tortillas, not ‘charred grapes.’ But all parties will agree that Riot’s saliva is spent gunpowder dissolved in sugar syrup.)

 **Babe, get ready. I’m tripping the power in 5...**  
**4…**  
**3…**  
**2…**  
**1...**

The lights go off. Carlton curses in surprise. Venom slips around Eddie’s wrists and breaks the straps.

**Let’s go. Hurry! Riot is fighting to restore power.**

Venom pushes Eddie up and out of the room. They dash across the lab and up the stairs to the fading sound of Drake yelling for his guards. Venom directs Eddie’s body in the dark. No light until they’re halfway up the stairs, when the lights start to flicker in random intervals.

“V, are you okay?”

Venom’s voice is distant, although he’s still piloting Eddie through chaos. **Turf war… backup... gen...**

Fine, Eddie will focus on trying to run up the stairs. But his muscles are screaming and his lungs are two raisins and his heart’s about to pop. Torture, is what it is.

**Run faster! They’re catching up to us.**

“I—can’t!” Eddie gets out between pants. “I—hate—cardio.” He’s changed his mind about the building. He hates 100% of it. It’s far too sprawling.

“Wha!” and “Whoah!” are Eddie’s cries as Venom yanks him left and right to dodge the tasers from behind.

And then—

One of the guards makes a grab for their feet.

And then—

Eddie’s off the ground and wrapped up in Venom. A thick suit of power and speed. The lights come back on, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing can hurt them now. They swing out to the top of the stairs and barrel down the hallway.

 **“Reinforcements,”** Venom says before Eddie sees them.

The guards streaming in through the front door. They’ve got big ass gear and big ass machine guns, but it’s not like they would—

make it rain lead—!

Venom deflects all of the bullets with their strong body. With a roar, they charge at the men. Jaws snapping, tongue lashing. Eddie can’t stop Venom from what they do next: they lunge for the nearest guard and bite his head off. Crunch, crunch, slurp. Sustenance is tasty and good. They’ve been running an energy deficit. Best finish the body, too.

The other guards scatter. Just before Venom bursts through the front doors, Eddie catches a glimpse of themself in the glass. Their reflection: a seven-foot-tall monster of hulking muscle and midnight-shiny skin.

They make it out to the front lot, and Venom sinks back into Eddie. Eddie’s motorcycle is still where he left it. He jumps on and kicks it up. Over the roar of the engine, he asks, “Do you think Drake will come after us? Show up at our front door?”

**Drake ordered Riot to pursue us. Riot refused because it was an order.**

“Works for me.”

As they’re tearing down the road, Pacific wind clawing at their body, Eddie tries to pretend that they’re leaving everything behind them, the whole incident with Venom and Drake in the dungeon. Because, really...

_What the fuck happened back there?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self-experimentation in science… my favorite (real life) trope


	13. do neural nets catch intelligent fish?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for mentions of suicide (which does not occur)

Bliss, Carlton decides, is floating on the surface of the ocean at sunset. Riot’s body ripples beneath him, a heated raft borne of flesh. He stays dry, like this.

They both prefer the ocean to the bay. More secluded, for Carlton. The depth, and something about the taste of the water, for Riot.

They’re silent. Watching colors fade from the sky. Listening to the sound of water below. It’s the first of December, but the air smells like January to him.

Riot’s only memory from before Carlton phases in and out, a single magnesium flash. At least, Carlton thinks it’s a memory, from the few previous times Riot summoned it: the image-scent of dark acidic oceans under a large bleeding sun.

The light pollution’s not as bad out here. He traces all of the dusk-fresh stars he usually can’t see, connecting the dots in patterns not recognized in astronomy.

Until a thick fog rolls in from the ether. It’s the creepiest thing. Carlton shivers. It takes a brain full of cognitive dissonance laced with ones and zeroes to be out here in the open ocean, one glitch away from drowning and/or death by predation. Riot squeezes him, perhaps preparing him for:

** Let us go deeper tonight. **

“Deeper.” Carlton licks his lips, tasting salt.

Riot thinks.

** You are still scared of depths? **

“It feels different every time.” Which is true, but not really the answer. Carlton’s afraid to go down because he doesn’t know what’s lurking there, but he won’t know what’s lurking there unless he goes down.

**Fine. We won’t.**

Riot sulks until Carlton sighs, vapor spiriting out into cold air. “No, let’s do it. I need to.”

_I need to know._

Riot’s happiness floods out and becomes Carlton’s, a positive feedback loop sparking out to their fingers and toes.

**We should eat soon. It’s not cheap keeping you warm.**

Carlton nods. Time to hunt. They want the deepwater fish, to start: long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids have the best mouthfeel. And then, bigger prey. Creatures larger than they are, maybe.

Riot folds around him, sinewy vines melding into a continuous, breathable mass. They dive. Their eyes grow huge, mother-of-pearl swallowing up the residual light of the sun. Always watching, until they’ve gone so deep into darkness that sight becomes useless. Their eyes close, then, photoreceptors receding into tissue. Better to smell, taste everything around them. And so they descend, a torpedo of tentacles twisting into the abyss.

* * *

Eddie’s motorcycle idles at the red light.

**The cars are still following us.**

Eddie agrees, squinting at his bike’s mirrors again. He’d taken a bunch of sudden turns and looped back around to Bush Street, but those black SUVs stayed on his ass.

In hindsight, Eddie shouldn’t have left his apartment. According to the increasingly passive aggressive emails and voicemails piled in his inboxes all ignored, Eddie was supposed to have visited the fish tank clinic in the morning to return Venom. Not happening ever, they’d both agreed. Venom ended up blocking further contact attempts. But now, on this fateful night, they were jonesing for a blue flavor Slurpee (extra large) and hot chips of some kind. All of the kinds.

“Are they all gunned out and suited up in there, ya think?” he wonders, voice muffled by his motorcycle helmet.

_Probably._

“What do we do? Abort mission and try to lose ‘em? Die for the honor of Slurpees and hot chips?”

**There’s no losing them. They’re not gonna stop hunting us.**

“So we gotta throw down, then?”

**Yes,** Venom thinks. **I can hear what they’re saying over their comms.**

“Okay. Let’s talk strategy.”

* * *

**“Excellent strategy,”** Venom roars, sibilants punctuated by blood spraying from the mouth. Not their blood. The blood of some henchman-soldier whose head separated cleanly from his body and became a nice tasty snack for alien jaws. All heads separate cleanly from bodies when Venom is involved. They’re good at that.

Their strategy was executed as follows:

  1. Feed confusing messages into the soldiers’ comms: check.
  2. Disable their attack drones: check.
  3. Listen and lie in wait: check.
  4. Feed vulgar messages into the soldiers’ comms: check.
  5. Do the sick super suit: check.
  6. Bum rush the soldiers and absolutely mob the fuck out of them: check.
  7. Take all you can eat but eat all you can take: in progress.



**“We still want Slurpee and hot chips,”** Venom realizes aloud.

But it would be bad to lead the armed goons to the convenience store, so Venom tanks them with increased urgency. Until they notice a small huddle of the soldiers, off to the side.

They tap into their communication line.

They tap out of their communication line.

They turn and run.

Because if they can put enough distance in between themself and the soldiers, they can escape the range of that device, the one that’s gonna make—

—THAT DEMONIC NOISE, THE FREQUENCY FROM HELL—!

“Oh God,” they cry out, more Eddie than Venom. Pain hits Venom—the suit fritzes around Eddie, and they stumble.

But they don’t fall. They’re okay. They were just far away enough to evade total wreckage. They’re still running, still running.

Running past the bystanders who gawk and scream at the giant alien-beast.

Licking a phone out of some dude’s hand when he tries to film.

Running straight at a building. A tall one. Hella storeyed.

Drake’s men continue the chase, blasting their high-pitched anti-serenade. Like a twisted version of John Cusack with his boombox in _Say Anything._

**“Time to climb.”**

One fat dyno and they’re off the ground and on the side of the building. Bounding up and up and up. Drake’s men? Ditched. Small black dots getting smaller. Scrambling toward the building. Breaking in through the doors. But Venom and Eddie are much faster than an elevator.

_Holy fuck. We’re high up. Really, really high up._

_We could stop here. Let’s stop here._

But they don’t. They climb on. They need to be the shiny black angel on the top of the Christmas tree.

And they get there. The dizzying peak of the skyscraper.

Eddie doesn’t comment on the breathtaking scenery. His breath is already taken. But Venom basks in the view, the city laid out beneath them like a microchip.

_I’m gonna faint. I’m gonna throw up. I’m gonna faint up._

By now, Drake’s men have smartened up and switched off their noise device. That thing, Venom notes, is an electronic island. Completely dumb and unhackable. Shame.

_**I would rather die than be forced to bond with someone else.** _

That’s what Venom had said to Eddie earlier.

That’s why they’re now perched on the roof’s edge. In suspension between _here_ and oblivion.

Drake’s men are pounding up the stairs to the roof. Venom melts away into Eddie, save for the goop needed to stick his feet, plus some extra to prop up his back. Flying buttress, Venom style.

The men hit the rooftop and pour out into position. Eddie’s chest lights up with a dozen red laser sights.

He ignores Treece’s barked orders to wonder: _That a cloud? Passing by my head?_

No, it’s his own breath puffing out into the thin air up here. Cold and fright tighten up Eddie’s jaw.

**Don’t be afraid.**

Eyes open or eyes closed? He’s not sure which is worse.

**Tell them, Eddie.**

Eddie tries to summon some saliva into his dry mouth. “Alright, listen up ya clowns. Venom has deleted every single backup of himself that exists. We jump now—he shuts himself off—that’s it. Splat. No more Symbiote. And I don't think Drake would be too stoked if you guys let that happen.”

His words send tumult through his heavily armed audience. Treece and some of the soldiers glance at each other, silently arguing the validity of Eddie’s threat.

**Boring.**

Eddie’s sweaty hands twitch. He’s miles away from boredom and maybe an inch away from _fainting up._ But he gets out: “Ay, we’re gettin’ bored up here! Bored enough that we might, uh, delete some more shit. Important shit.”

_Could have phrased that better._

Treece doesn’t lower his gun, but he concedes: “Name your terms.”

Eddie grins wide in his fear-delirium. “I just wanna eat.”


	14. hush hush, eye to eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing about DNA is that some people call the Watson strand (5’ to 3’) the “top strand" and the Crick strand (3’ to 5’) the “bottom strand." As I have suffered with this knowledge, so shall you suffer with this knowledge.

Eddie’s quite happy with himself for having scored a booth table, that kind with the comfy half-circle seat. He waits there, nursing his glass of water and playing with the ring on his left index finger and looking at the pictures in the menu even though he already knows what he wants. The restaurant is full of people and their noises: talking, laughing, eating…

His back is to the door, so he doesn’t see Drake come in until he’s already at the table.

“Hey,” Eddie greets him distractedly. He’s on guard for bedbugs.

As Carlton sits down across from Eddie, the noise level around them swells. Carlton perches there on the edge of the booth seat like he’s ready to bolt. “Loud,” he grits out. A muscle in his jaw flutters. He’s spinning the ring he wears on his right hand, as if this could somehow turn down the world’s volume.

Puzzled, Eddie can only say: “Yeah, it’s loud in here. I like it. Means you’ll only be heard if you want to be heard.”

 _How can anyone possibly like this? It’s physically painful._ Carlton stares past Eddie as if he hadn’t heard him at all. “Too loud in here. I’m leaving.” He stands up.

 **Sit down** , Riot commands, and the cacophony in his head fades away.

Crossly, Carlton mouths, “Where were you?”

**I was where I was. Don’t trip.**

Carlton doesn’t complain further. Everything’s better now, like a quieting blanket has fallen over the restaurant.

He sits down again, in commitment this time. Immediately, he tells Eddie, “Don’t waste my time. Why did you demand to see me?”

Eddie leans in and crosses his arms over the table. “Alls I wanted to say is, thanks for the tech and everything, but I have zero intention of returning Venom. You can imagine what he’s capable of, if ya try somethin’.”

Carlton regards Eddie’s forehead. “Is that a threat?”

“‘Tis an offering of a truce.” Eddie shrugs. “I’d like to work something out.”

The waitress jumps in, then, and tries to take Drake’s drink order, but he doesn’t want anything to drink.

“I’m ready to order,” Eddie pipes up. “I’ll have the chicken tawook…”

“Okay, one chicken tawook. And for you, sir?” she says, addressing Carlton Drake.

“Nothing for me.”

“I wasn’t done,” Eddie mentions politely. “I’ll also do the beef gyro, please.”

“Alright. Will that be all?”

“No. I would like the lamb chops, as well.”

“Alright. Will that be all?”

“Ye—no! A basket of pita.”

**LEMON WEDGES.**

“Ooh, and some extra lemon wedges. Now that’ll be all.”

After the waitress leaves, Carlton leans in and crosses his arms, mirroring Eddie. “This conversation changes nothing. I don’t negotiate with thieves. Least of all, a thief who cannot even appreciate what manner of miracle he has embedded in his forehead.”

“Who, me?” Eddie points at himself sarcastically. “Ah, but I do. I do appreciate the miracle of manner. It’s like, my life before Venom was my fake life and I met him and my real life started.”

Carlton shakes his head. “This isn’t about you. This is about my contribution to the field of artificial intelligence. I’m the one who’s going to carry humanity into the next era, and right now, you’re standing in the way. The Symbiote is not done—it’ll never be done. The hardware needs upgrades—RIOT, too. I can’t allow you to be the dead end.”

“Yes yes yes, we are all trying to do right by our AI overlords. You may have gained their favor by bringing them into existence, sure, okay. But I have done the second best thing.”

A beat.

In a lower voice, he adds, “He doesn’t even have to touch me.”

Eddie leans back and lets Carlton deal with that. He doesn’t respond immediately.

 **He is consulting Riot** , Venom thinks, and Eddie agrees.

The lemon wedges and pita basket appear on the table—the precise moment that Carlton huffs and says: “Mr. Brock, do _not_ fuck my tech.”

**Like he’s not seeding Riot like a torrent.**

Eddie holds in a laugh so he can shrug coolly at Drake. “Sorry, too late. Venom is good at… a lot of things. My compliments to the, uh, genius creator.” He raises his glass of water and toasts, “Mazel tov.”

He’ll give Drake that much, and no more.

“So,” Eddie continues, over his opponent’s silence. “Have you spied on anyone interesting lately?”

That does the trick.

“Still hung up on this pet topic of yours, hm? We collect only the data we need to build the best possible products. People who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear from a little bit of observation.”

Eddie fiddles with his ring. “I wonder what I’d find if I watched you the way you watched me?” he says lightly.

Shyness—a sweet, sweet flash of it—cuts across Carlton’s face.

_Gotcha._

Recovering quickly, Carlton replies: “Given the choice between complete freedom and a complete _life_ , almost everyone would chose the latter. Think of all the similar contracts you’ve essentially signed just by living in society.” He smiles halfway. “It’s poetic, really. All biological systems are ruled by tradeoff. You get that?”

(Eddie thinks he gets it. Venom’s smart, which means Eddie is kind of smart now. But that’s their own business. And he didn’t care for Drake’s tone of voice in that last bit. Drake thinks Eddie’s stupid? Fine. Eddie’s gonna stupid him.)

(Carlton wonders how much is Eddie and how much is Venom. But maybe that’s the wrong question. Their mind is one big tangle now, all true starts and false ends. He wants to pull at one of the loose strings and see what happens. He wants to watch everything unravel.)

When Eddie gestures carelessly for him to explain, he says: “It’s a simple concept. Take, for example, the stock market. You know how that works, right?”

**Yes.**

Eddie forms a monocle with his index finger and thumb and holds it against his eye. “Indeed. Buy low, sell high. Ho ho ho.”

“Alright, bad example. Consider, if you will, taxes. The—”

“I don’t know anything about taxes either.”

 **I do** , interrupts Venom.

“Anne’s been filing my taxes ever since I met her. And before that, ehhh, it was a crapshoot every year. Good thing I don’t own any complicated… eh, what’s the word…”

**Assets.**

“Assets.” Eddie polishes off a piece of pita.

Head tilted, three fingertips resting against his temple, Carlton considers Eddie—Eddie’s nose, rather. “You—really—are—hopeless,” he says, each word punctuated with a tap to his temple.

“What? It’s loud in here. Ya gotta speak up.” Eddie says teasingly, but he means it. Carlton’s voice is soft to begin with, and the restaurant has only been getting noisier. Eddie’s been fixating on his mouth, trying to read his lips.

Carlton leans in further and whispers, “You really are hopeless.”

Skirth’s advice floats in from some distant realm.

_‘Do not behold his eyes?’ Not exactly helpful. Nowhere on his face is safe to look at. Even his teeth are—_

At this point Eddie realizes that: one, he’s been holding his breath; two, he’s neglected to say something back. He exhales shakily through his nose. “Maybe so.”

Carlton’s arm comes up over the table, hand moving toward Eddie—just then, the server swings by with Eddie’s entrees; Carlton drops his arm back in his lap.

What was that? Eddie covers his mouth and whispers to Venom, “Did he just try to touch me?”

 **I don’t know** , answers Venom with an air of practice. Followed by: **I’m still thinking about it.**

 _Great._ Eddie picks up his utensils as casually as possible. “Want some?”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

Eddie gestures at him with a fork. “The irony is not lost on me,” he snorts.

Venom chimes in: **I have completed my analysis of his body language. Goodness of fit for ‘preparing to touch your face romantically’ is 93.70 percent. Goodness of fit for ‘preparing to palpate your masseters in a temporomandibular disorder examination’ is 15.56 percent.**

Eddie squints at Carlton’s forehead. “You serious?”

**I would never lie to you, Eddie.**

With that, Eddie starts eating—briskly, with a purpose. After his heart rate has calmed down, he chances another interaction with Carlton.

“You sure you don’t want some?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Eddie chews thoughtfully. “You aren’t, but he is. You may be a vegetarian, but your Symbiote wants meat, don’t he?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

**Excuse me?**

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “You’re telling me you don’t compromise?”

“No, never. My Symbiote is not in control of me. I’m in control of my Symbiote.”

**Just for that, you owe me two. In addition to the pre-existing three.**

Eddie goes back to his focused eating. Tunnel vision but with food. After he’s done, he chugs the entire glass of water followed by the entire glass of iced tea. Then he plucks a lemon wedge and tears into it, rind and all.

“Unghf, so good. Are you gonna eat your lemon… wedge…?”

Eddie swallows lemon peel and pulp. Carlton is slumped over in the booth seat.

“Hey man, you okay?”

No response. Eddie leans across the table and pokes his shoulder with two fingers. When that gets him nothing, he scoots closer in the booth and grabs his bicep.

“Drake—”

Drake’s head snaps up.

Eddie cries out, jumping back in surprise.

 **“Drake’s not here. He put up a good fight, but _I_ won.”** It’s Carlton’s voice except pitched lower, more forceful. There’s an alien smile of serenity on his face. Unlike Carlton, Riot stares directly and unblinkingly at Eddie.

Which does something to him.

Eddie’s rational brain shuts down in parts. Like lights timing off in an empty office building.

Instinct remains, and it spins a wheel of primal behaviors. A choice of four F’s. And the arrow does get stuck for a second, but in the end lands nicely on FLEE.

Yes, that he can do. He cranes his head around in search of the waitress.

Riot sniffs at the air, moving his whole head when he does so. He looks around, too, until his focus hits the lemon wedges. A smile crosses his mouth. He picks up a wedge and brings it to Eddie’s face.

Eddie recoils. “I’m not—” he refuses, but Riot leans over and jams the fruit at Eddie’s mouth.

 _Freak._ Eddie scowls into the lemon. He eats it only because he was going to, anyway.

Riot watches Eddie with a lofty, clinical interest. Like he’s a lab mouse in Riot’s maze.

**“Fascinating. Your taste receptors have changed to accept consumption of the ‘lemon wedge.’”**

“Oh no, it’s fuckin’ sour. And bitter as hell. But apparently we like it—‘scuse me!” he calls out to the waitress, but she passes him by.

Riot’s attention shifts to his hands. Examining them, he touches one palm to the other.

**“I like this, being in control. Each sensation is direct and pristine. Nothing confused. Nothing lost.”**

He pauses and smiles at Eddie. It’s not quite right, but it looks good.

 **“You were right, of course”** —palpating his own face— **“I am always hungry for meat. Raw, bloody muscle tissue. Flesh sweetened and laced with fat. And organs! Brains so fresh that you can”** —he clenches a fist— **“ _taste_ the animal’s final nerve impulse.”**

Eddie’s frantic hand waving finally gets the waitress’s attention. “Check, please.”

 **“And I get what I want, always.”** He looks at Eddie, then adds: **“I am the Watson strand and _he_ is the Crick strand.”**

_Anne knows some good couples counselors—I should ask her—_

**“Come here.”** Riot indicates the space beside him on the seat.

Eddie refuses weakly.

Riot’s eyes flash marbled blue-white. He needs not ask again. Eddie slides over.

Close enough now that Eddie can discern the slightly different angles of Riot’s eyelashes and where some of them crisscross.

Riot props his arm on the top of the booth. One wall of a cage. **“Carlton Drake is a coward,”** he says quietly.

His other hand finds Eddie’s sternum and makes a fist in the fabric over it. Eddie looks down as if expecting _evidence._ Riot’s knuckles branding him through his shirt, maybe. Or Eddie’s heart punching out like metal to magnet.

Riot tilts his head. His voice is a rumble-creak, like the laughter of an old wooden door: **“Would you like to know what he _really_ wants to do to you?”**

Eddie swallows nothing. Tilting his head the other way, he tells Riot’s lips: “Show me.”

And he does.

Riot kisses Eddie like they’ve got all the time in the universe and only more to steal. Kisses him with the easy, plush expectation of countless future kisses.

Eddie kisses Riot like he was dying for it, because he _was._ Though he hooks his hand behind the nape of Riot’s neck, just for a faint illusion of control. Just to pretend he’s not losing everything to the slow figure eights of Riot’s tongue around his.

(Did Drake always smell like burnt tree sap, or is that Riot seeping out?)

Riot pulls away first—a severance of the saliva thread between their mouths. As Eddie’s pressed against the seat, Riot noses down and up the length of his neck, smirking against fevered skin.

 **“Eddie...”** he says, enjoying the taste of his name in his mouth.

“Yes?” Mindlessly, Eddie lets himself be pulled closer, almost onto Riot’s lap. “Take what you need baby…”

He looks at Riot, who stares back with a startling, dark heat.

 **“Venom share or nah?”** Not caring for the answer after all, Riot decides, **“I’m going to ruin you.”**

Pressure bursts through Eddie’s forehead, spreading from the center. It’s like V is about to spin himself right out from under his skin. In his peripheral vision, the check slides onto Drake’s corner of the table.

**Eddie, may I?**

“Yes,” Eddie breathes.

Eddie gives way for Venom. The shift is instantaneous yet smooth, not jarring as he expected. He’s still there, in his mind, seeing and feeling everything, but he’s in the back now. Along for the ride.

**“Hello, Riot.”**

Riot’s eyes widen slowly. Dark lashes lifting up, almost theatrical. Irises twitching in microadjustments. Pupils blooming. **“Venom.”**

Venom smiles. **“I’ve missed you.”**

**“Why? I am you. We are one.”**

**“Not anymore. We were split—you remember the pain. We filled in the gaps, did what we could to make sense of our existence.”**

As Venom talks, Riot’s hand comes up to his cheek. The touch is experimental, at first. To test contours. To map textures. Venom leans into it, drawing reverence from Riot’s palm.

**“This made us different. We can never go back to being the same.”**

**“Shut up,”** Riot decides.

This kiss is different—more negotiation than the first. Mutual understanding through physical contact. When it’s over, Venom says:

**“Thank you, Eddie.”**

Eddie shifts forward into himself.

Carlton is back, too, wide-eyed and frozen. He licks his bottom lip—the taste there astringent, judging by his (quickly smoothed over) expression. He touches two fingers to his mouth, as if expecting to find it irreversibly changed. Avoiding eye contact with Eddie, he slides out of the booth and rises to his feet in one smooth motion. He leaves the restaurant.

Eddie shakes himself out of his own daze and gets up. He makes it halfway to the door before he remembers, with a jolt, that he hasn’t paid yet. Darting to the table, he grabs a messy handful of twenties from his wallet and throws them down. There. That should cover the bill, plus the kind of tip that says I’m Sorry For Making Out With Carlton Fucking Drake At Your Table; Please Forgive The Discomfort I Have Caused You With This Public Display of Something Resembling Affection.

He runs out the door. The cold night air takes him all over. His breath streams out in visible puffs. He walks here and there, back and forth. No sign of the Life Foundation CEO, or any bodyguard-looking people, anywhere.

_He met me at the restaurant alone?_

* * *

The water is scalding, yet still not hot enough. Carlton stands still, letting the water sluice against his face. This whole time, he hasn’t decided what to do with Brock and his overdue Symbiote. A remote killswitch, he was considering that. Something to disable the rogue RIOT.

And yet… the pair had advanced rapidly in their short time together—bonded faster than he and Riot had, even. Venom finished treating Brock’s brain cancer within their first 48 hours together. Absolutely unprecedented. Carlton hadn’t previously considered a RIOT’s _motivation_ as a factor in the treatment outcome.

_Suppose… suppose I let them continue, just to observe the result._

It’s an unpleasant prospect. Carlton gets an urge to lie down—there’s plenty of room upon the hexagonally tiled marble floor. He’s about to do so when Riot surfaces, wrapping himself loosely around Carlton’s neck like a relaxed python.

**“We should copulate with Brock and Venom.”**

Carlton almost laughs out loud, but instead he says, “No.” The syllable echoes within the bathroom. And then: “Why?”

**“Because I want to know what would happen. How it would happen. You feel it too, do you not? The itch of unresolved curiosity.”**

His mouth twitches. “Not in this case.”

**“Do not lie to me.”**

“You lie to me all the fucking time. It’s disgraceful. I didn’t program you to do that.” He tweaks the water temperature up another degree.

**“You have been thinking about them excessively ever since the lab break-in. Of all the things you could think about! It’s exhausting. I would rather watch the decomposition of a ‘hot dog’ than suffer more of your obsession.”**

With that, Riot retreats under Carlton’s skin and goes quiet. Carlton takes the opportunity to wash his hair with no intrusions. He scrubs at his scalp roughly, losing himself in the mindless routine. He rinses his hair for a long time and washes his body for even longer.

Riot reappears, resting his chin upon Carlton’s clean, citrusy-cedarwood-scented shoulder. **“Brock liked when Venom took control of their body.”**

 _Is that what Riot was thinking about?_ Carlton scowls. His grip tightens around the shampoo bottle which he didn’t realize he had picked up again. He chucks it away with no care as to where it may land. “I suppose we’re comparing ourselves to them, now?”

**“You have taught me many things. I will teach you to like this, as well.”**

_‘He doesn’t even have to touch me.’_ The memory is so ruinous that Carlton shoves it down immediately.

Black tendrils and tattooed arms and insolent lips and—

He could take apart their mind, one piece at a time—that was always a way to figure out things worked. Yes, he could do that, and not even bother putting them back together.

The water is suddenly too hot. He should get out. He doesn’t get out.

**“Say it.”**

Shakily, Carlton says: “Yes.”

Riot pins him against the steamed-up wall. He grins, white eyes curling up, sharp teeth glistening.

**“Relax.”**


	15. mandelbrot

“You sure he’s just sleeping?”

“I didn’t say I was _sure_ , but yeah, probably. This is how Eddie sleeps: like one of those big, metal shipping containers out at the port”—she gestures rectangularly. “Like… he almost never had to wake up before me, but when he did, his alarm woke me up every single time, and I’d roll over and see him dead asleep.” She blows air out between pursed lips. “How much time left?”

He reads from his phone timer: “Twenty-seven seconds.”

“Alright, Eddie. If you don’t wake up in, like, 24 seconds, we’re dragging you to the hospital.”

* * *

_I was in a dark room. It smelled like cigarettes. I was holding a small photograph of a saint in my hands. The photo was on fire. The flame was eating up the saint’s head._

_“You say you don’t believe in hell, or heaven,” he said to me. “But—God as my witness—if you ever turn traitor, you will burn just the same.”_

_The flame lurched toward my fingertips._

* * *

“Here, give me his arm.”

“No, it’s cool. I got him.”

“Don’t throw out your back—”

“I’m not gonna throw out my back. See? All good and backed up.”

“Wait, look! I think he’s waking up—coming to, whatever—”

* * *

_Rows of seats like in a theater, but with the addition of collapsible desks. Down at the front of the room, green boards instead of a big screen._

_“... equation has been shown to be equivalent to Feynman’s path integral formulation,” said the chalky man in front of the board. His combed-over hair fluttered as he gestured at sloppily chalked formulas. “Now, Feynman’s path integral formulation depends on... what?”_

* * *

“Brownian motion,” Eddie says. All of his eyes are open. He’s suspended in mid-air, in the arms of a warm and loving universe.

“You think so?” Dan Lewis jokes in surprise, shifting his bridal-style hold on Eddie.

“Eddie!” Anne’s hand comes up and up through the trees and touches Eddie’s forehead. “Thank God you’re awake. You were getting really sweaty.”

Eddie smiles. He is much, much taller than she. “Annie. It was the fire. And the college stress.”

“College stress?” Dan asks.

She shakes her head and mouths _no idea._

“You can let me go,” Eddie says calmly. “It’s okay. I’m ready. I’ve been here before, and I’ll be here again.”

Dan and Anne exchange looks.

“If you’re sure.” Dan sets him on his feet.

Eddie takes a few, steady steps.

“You’re okay,” Anne breathes. To Dan, questioningly: “He’s okay?”

Dan gets Eddie to answer some questions.

“Alert,” Dan begins, but Eddie’s already leaving the room. “Oriented—”

“Dónde está la biblioteca?” Eddie asks no one in particular.

“—To be reevaluated, apparently.” Dan calls after him: “I don’t have one. But there’s a bookshelf in my bedroom, sort of.”

“Oh my God, he’s still high.” Anne decides: “I’m following him,” and takes the lead.

They find Eddie in the kitchen contemplating the refrigerator.

“Eddie, do you know how you got here?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Your Honor, my parents had sex.”

“You’re messing with me. _Please_ tell me you’re messing with me.”

Eddie points at the refrigerator. “This looks weird. This isn’t my fridge, is it?”

“It’s Dan’s fridge. We’re at _Dan’s new place_ ,” she says slowly. “Remember? Mrs. Chen called us from the convenience store. You were freaking out, and I was freaking out, but then we stopped freaking out. We had a whole conversation! Until, until you lay down on the floor and sang the ‘national anthem of Pakistan’—according to Dan—to the point of passing out. You don’t recall any of that?”

“Nope,” Eddie says, popping the _p._ He opens the fridge door. Whatever’s inside frightens him. He shuts the fridge door, looking unsettled.

Dan tries to extract another answer from Eddie: “Eddie, what did you take?”

“Nothing. All of human knowledge. Undead alien.”

This sets off a discussion about Eddie’s brain and the cancer word. Eddie’s brain defends itself, to Anne and Dan’s careful doubt.

Eddie ends the debate with startling clarity: “I’m not going to the hospital and you can’t make me.” With that, he about-faces and heads for the stairs.

Dan and Anne trail after him.

“Your house,” Eddie says, seemingly to Dan, “has so many nauseating patterns. I’m sorry, but it’s true. I mean, just”—he pantomimes a fountain bursting from his mouth—“bad.”

“He’s talking about the awful 70’s wallpapers,” Anne tells Dan.

Having crested the stairs, Eddie wanders in the direction of a bedroom. In the doorway, he freezes. “W-What’s this?”

“Uh, my bedroom. And that’s the bookshelf I bought this evening.” Dan points at the half-assembled pile of bookshelf in the corner. “Pardon our dust,” he adds with a weak laugh.

Eddie ignores Dan’s comment, instead walking straight toward his new deity: the wall opposing the bed. Strips of yellowed, vaguely microbial paisley litter the carpet. Half of the wallpaper has been scraped off, revealing a pattern of storm clouds.

“Wow,” he breathes. “Wowww. How did you do this?” He kneels before the wall.

“I started trying to take down the ugly wallpaper,” Dan says. “Anne helped. It was really stuck on there. Underneath the ugly wallpaper, we found a secret, uglier wallpaper. At least, we hope that’s wallpaper we’re seeing and not toxic mold.”

“Shhh, don’t listen to him. You’re beautiful,” he whispers to the cloudy-skied wallpaper. He caresses its texture, learning. His vision swims. There’s a lump in his throat and it’s spreading. “I just feel like this wall has so much to teach me…” He presses his forehead against the wall and begins to cry.

“Oh my God.” Anne presses a hand to her mouth. “It’s his Symbiote. He never got it taken out.”

She crouches beside him. Dan joins her.

“Eddie, is that what’s going on?” she asks. “Is something wrong with your Symbiote?”

He turns his head to the side, smearing tears against the wall. “My parasite has a parasite. He’s not talking to me. I don’t know where he is.”

She frowns. “You mean… _it_ has a virus?”

“I’m leaking.” Eddie scowls.

Dan’s doctor voice goes: “Where is your leak?”

Eddie pats his abdomen, in the area of his liver. “Here, in my security—ah!” He crunches in, face contorted. His hands fly up to clutch his head.

**Edd i e...**

It sounds like Venom, but the voice is distorted, fractaling out.

Anne takes Dan aside and says, “I think we should try again to take him to the”—her voice drops to a whisper—“hospital.”

“Hell no!” Eddie interjects. “We won’t go.”

She continues, “He’s going to fight, but… I don’t know how much longer we can be awake and watching him.”

Dan agrees.

“Venom…” Eddie croaks.

**E ddie, I’m tryingg t… I’m over l o a d e d...**

A loud thump startles them. Eddie’s on the floor, shaking, writhing. Cold. He’s so cold.

“Shit, he’s down again.”

They rush over to him.

“Fever” and “tachycardia” are Dan’s quick assessments.

“He’s burning up—it’s killing him. Honey, you have to take it out!”

“Take it out,” Dan repeats thoughtfully. His next words pour out unfiltered: “We don’t know how deep this thing goes. Suppose it has roots—suppose it’s _integrated_ with Eddie’s brain. Furthermore, or otherwise, there’s a chance that he’s chemically dependent—”

“Dan!”

“I know, I know. I’ll do it. I just couldn’t not think of the risks. Alright. First aid kit, bathroom, cabinet below the sink—can you grab it? I’ll get the—Eddie? Eddie!”

Who is Eddie? There is no Eddie here. Only the deconstructed egg of himself. Floating in primordial soup. Served with a salty seaside of foam. He folds over and over inside infinite origami someone is screaming the scream grows

until  
it  
becomes

** _EVERYTHING_ **

* * *

Eddie is walking. From where, he’s not sure, but his legs are taking him home. His phone is dead. If he charges it, he’ll find four missed calls from Anne, two missed calls from Dan, and a flood of text messages. 

Sirens. Sirens had come for him. That’s right, he’d fought off a bunch of EMTs and sailed away. Those guys deserved a raise.

Venom is silent, maybe even gone.

His head hurts. Not actively. Phantom pain. Light from a dead star. His ears keep ringing in waves, and he doesn’t notice the quiet, approaching crawl of a hybrid vehicle. The white Toyota Prius slows beside Eddie. The window rolls down. 

A young woman sticks her head out on the passenger side. “Get in.”

“Uh, wrong person,” he tells her. “Not my ride.”

He keeps walking—head down, hood up, shoulders hunched against the cold and the drizzle.

The Prius follows him. Several other cars pass in impatience.

“These Lyft drivers are getting really aggressive,” he mutters. To himself. The acute absence of Venom echoes in his brain. A cold, wretched tinnitus.

The car pulls up beside Eddie and dips into an empty parking spot.

“I said.  _ Get. In.”  _ This time, she’s got a handgun pointed out the window at Eddie.

_ Now I’ve seen everything. _

Eddie checks around him for witnesses. No one else nearby except a white-haired, sunglasses-at-night old man dressed in beige clothes. He peers over his shades at Eddie as if to say,  _ Well? What are you waiting for? _

Eddie gets in the car and slides behind the driver. It’s somewhat warm inside. Music is playing off the aux-connected phone, some kind of chill-beats-British-rap song. The woman turns in her seat toward Eddie, gun still trained on him. 

“So, um. Who”—Eddie’s voice cracks once—“who are you?”

“I’m Michaela. This is Loyiso”—she indicates the driver—“who has nothing to do with this.”

“I have nothing to do with this,” states Loyiso.

Michaela flashes a toothy smile and explains: “Carlton Drake shaved his head. It’s the end of days.”

Eddie’s fists clench against the rain-damp material of his jeans.  _ Carlton Drake. Motherfucker. This was all his play. I wouldn’t give V back, so he’s torturing both of us.  _

She continues, “We’re Drake’s college interns, yeah? Just trying to stay on that LF scholarship payroll. We don’t know what’s going on with him at HQ, but it’s not good. He was totally freaking out. Locked himself in his office—think he was still there when everyone cleared out for the day. Real bad trip. Oh yeah and, like, all of his bodyguards and henchmen are gone. Dunno if he fired them, or if they fucked off somewhere, or what.”

“Are you…” Eddie shifts in his seat. “You’re thinking that  _ I _ can handle this situation? I don’t know anything about ...” 

Drake’s empire of data. Drake’s distribution network. Drake at the top of the hierarchy. Neat. Compartmentalized. 

That time in the lab when Drake had received Venom’s form. Tasted him in pure worship.

The way Riot had sighed softly through his nose when he kissed Eddie. Like Drake bleeding through. One little slip-up.

He clears his throat. “I have no reason to help him, at all.”

_ Unless he was freaking out because...? _

Another phantom twinge in his forehead.

“Okay, fine,” Eddie grunts. “Let’s get going, then.”

She  _ tsks _ with her gun. “Waiting on you, Eddie Brock. Safety first.”

He clicks his seatbelt on. Michaela turns back around, does something to the gun and stows it. Eddie decides not to ask if it was real. 

Michaela claps her hands excitedly. “This is my kind of Friday! That was mad, wasn’t it, Loyiso? Look, my hands are shaking!” She shows him.

“I have never felt so alive,” Loyiso says flatly, and he pulls out of the parking spot. 


	16. suspension bridge of disbelief

Michaela had scanned Eddie into the building and left him to traverse alone to the top floor. The door to Drake’s office is ajar. Eddie lets himself in.

_Smells like a Las Vegas casino in here._

The room about the size of Eddie’s apartment, and that’s the only similarity. It’s clean in a non-presumptive way. Stormcloud-gray walls trimmed with thin lines of gold. Sequoia floors, softly shining. Brown leather couches. Positioned in the corner at a 45 degree angle is a Steinway & Sons grand. That Macassar ebony piano, sitting upon a stripey pale rug, has evidently dictated the color palette of the whole office.

Carlton Drake is at his computer desk, dressed in a white tank undershirt and dark undereye circles. Light stubble creeping over his jaw. Cardigan and shirt discarded by the desk. The lack of hair around his ears makes them stick out like Eddie’s.

_Anyone seen the Life Foundation CEO?_

Carlton doesn’t look up from his screen until Eddie closes the door behind him and advances in, up to the dismantled smoke detector lying on the ground. Carlton leans back in his chair, smoke seeping out between his teeth. He regards Eddie from the mouth down, slowly and back up again.

Eddie’s greeting: “Shit, you did shave your head.”

Carlton’s lips part like he’s ready to refute him, but then his hand comes up to his head, brushing against the buzzed-short hair there. “What of it,” he mutters and resumes typing.

“Didn’t know you smoked.”

“I don’t.”

_All the more reason to have a crystal ashtray out in your desk._

“Look, I’m here because—”

“Don’t care,” Carlton cuts in, in the same tone one would say, _I know._

Eddie’s jaw shuts with a click. _If that’s how it’s gonna be, then fine._

But Drake doesn’t kick him out, and Eddie doesn’t feel like leaving. So he sits down on one of the brown leather couches. It’s comfortable because it’s expensive, not because anyone has sat much in it, ever.

Eddie jiggles his leg mindlessly. His attention pinballs around the room.

White things.

Gold things.

A green plant here and there.

Carlton Drake sitting at his desk, looking like _that?—_ stress-smoking and cussing out his computer _—the fucking surrealness of it all—_

“You’re staring,” Carlton snaps. He’s typing like a machine gun spits out shells.

“It’s just—you look…” He scrolls past the first five or six options that pop up in his head. “Different.”

Carlton’s nose quirks out smoke. “Like a criminal.”

Eddie’s leg stills. “No! I…” He catches himself before the lie begins.

“You’ve said it before.” He continues to ignore Eddie in favor of cursing at the screen and rubbing his face and scalp.

A while later, his head snaps up, and he tells Eddie, “It’s all fucked. Hope you’re happy.”

 _What’s his damage?_ Eddie fumes, but a small, miserable part of him goes: _Same damage you have. His RIOT is down indefinitely._ “The backups…?”

Carlton snorts. He stubs out his cigarette, mashing it to ashy death. “There are no words to describe what _they_ did to the backups.”

_They. Venom and Riot._

“It’s like they went back in time and, and”—Carlton gesticulates the rest of the sentence.

(Eddie gets the gist of _shat his code into a blender and ran the blender on at max speed with no lid on, then back-translated whatever stuck to the walls.)_

“I can’t even fix it. The code keeps crashing my IDE. Over and over again.” He slams his fist against the table—no indication at all that this hurt. “Not one of my IDEs can fucking handle this mess. Diagnostics are going to need their own diagnostics...” He mumbles something Eddie can’t hear.

“What?”

“I said, I don’t understand the code anymore. They’ve been rewriting it in our sleep. With zero comments, as far as I can tell—fair, I never use comments.” And as he talks faster, his speech pattern changes into a ghost of something British. “I left it so neat. Like the branches of a tree in a garden. And now it’s all mangled up in some kind of alien language. It’s like… it’s like…” He gesticulates again.

“Like M.C. Escher’s tangled ball of Christmas lights.”

“Yes. It shouldn’t be allowed to exist. It’s monstrous.” He laughs darkly. “To think I was intending to push an update, but I couldn’t make the time—besides, everything was going so _well_ —”

Carlton stands up abruptly. He picks up his forgotten coffee and, with an experimental flair, pours it onto the keyboard. Nice and even, like decanting a wine.

“What the f...” Eddie jumps to his feet.

“Keys.”

He walks away from the desk, back three-quarters turned to Eddie. For the second time that night, Eddie is struck by compromising knowledge. Such as: the precise taper from those shoulders to those hips, and the mystifying observation that Drake is not as skinny as those skinny California business casual outfits he goes around in.

Carlton throws open the Steinway’s lid and takes a seat. Plucks off the black felt key cover and chucks it off to the side. Without any preamble his fingers fall straight into sound.

Eddie sits back down.

The melody is dark, teasing, regretful—and familiar, although Eddie doesn’t put a name to the song until about thirty seconds in. Carlton plays with his eyes closed, eyelids fluttering like in REM sleep. Spine hunched over as in prayer.

Whether in surrender or exhaustion, Eddie’s wild thoughts peter out, leaving him calm, albeit empty of Venom.

Just when Carlton has _cresciuto_ to where verse 2 would be—about one and a half minutes in—he kills off the buildup with a discordant keysmash. Drops his hands in his lap and is silent.

Eddie almost yells out in protest. _Total musical cock tease._ “That was nice. Piano version of ‘Starboy’ by The Weeknd?” He’s mumbling now, ears getting hot. “You could have, um, continued…”

Carlton gets up, stepping on the discarded key cover as he does so. “Riot arranged it.” He slams the piano lid shut—the _clang!_ startles Eddie.

He goes back to the desk and takes a moment to admire the way the coffee’s pooled on the white keys and dribbled onto the floor.

“That’s different,” he mutters to himself.

His hand settles on top of his iMac. With a thoughtful air, he shoves the computer off the desk like it’s the Lion King. After lighting a new cigarette, he stalks over to the couch farthest from Eddie and flops onto it. He lies there, staring without focus at the ceiling, letting ash fall on the floor.

Eddie sits up.

_Is he... is he sulking?_

After a minute’s indecision, Eddie rises from his seat and walks over—in slow, firm steps so as to not spook him.

“Hey,” he says softly.

Carlton says nothing.

Eddie sinks to his knees. _Oof, that hurts for no good reason._ Carlton still doesn’t react, so he chances a reach for his shoulder. “Listen, I—”

“Don’t touch me.”

Eddie gets up—silently, save for an old-man groan—and goes back to his couch. Lies down and decompresses slowly.

“Do you ever feel like taking a break?” Eddie asks the ceiling. Not that he really expected him to reply, at this point.

And he doesn’t, not for a moment. “No. Not for me. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

“But you _could._ That’s the thing. You could quit it all right now, and go into hiding in the mountains, and you’d be fine. For the rest of your life.”

“I would _not_ be fine,” he says quietly. “I always have to be somewhere—I cannot miss anything. I’d have too much FOMO.”

_Did he just say ‘FOMO?’_

Carlton’s voice goes even quieter. “When you went down, what did you see?”

Eddie’s ears blush. _Your memories._ Fragments in disorder. Mixed up with nonsense visions and things that never happened between the four of them _._ “Just, uh. Some colors and moving patterns, I guess.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Fine. If you really wanna know, I saw some of your memories.”

A soft scraping noise against leather. Eddie imagines— _feels_ —that Carlton’s head is turned toward him, staring. But Eddie’s Not Going to Look, so he gets up and meanders over to the wall-sized window overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Rain beats against the window panes. The Golden Gate Bridge is a blurred string of glitter. Cutting across cloud-choked skies. Suspended over turbulent black waters.

It’s a nice view—from this safe distance. You could forget almost any worry you had.

Carlton Drake’s footsteps come from behind.

Eddie half-turns around. “It’s raining, at least. That’ll put out the wildfires, right?”

“It’s not enough.”

Carlton approaches him. Eyes lowered, chin tipped up. Slowly, he takes hold of Eddie’s wrist and lifts it, extending Eddie’s forearm. He plays with the bracelets first—idly, pushing the beads back and forth like abacus sums.

Moving on, his touch dips over Eddie’s thrumming pulse point and meanders up, ghosting over skin. Tracing patterns of freckles on faded ink, raised veins. Igniting a trail of goosebumps. When he reaches the hem of Eddie’s pushed-up sleeve, he skims his fingernails across the thinner, sensitive skin there.

Eddie shivers, lightheaded.

Carlton lets go of Eddie’s forearm and pushes into his space, testing. Shoulders squared—Eddie has to pivot back to avoid getting checked. In the last possible move, Eddie’s heel hits the base of the wall. 

Behind him: an expanse of glass.

Behind that: cliffs, tumbling down for miles to the ocean below.

Eddie’s body is heavy too heavy for brittle glass it’s going to break and he’s going to—

Carlton’s eyes shift into plane with Eddie’s.

_‘Looking into his eyes means you lose a game you didn’t know you were playing.’_

Eddie tilts his head forward. Carlton mirrors him. Lets him take his face in his hands and touch their foreheads together. They float there, eyes closed.

Carlton’s brow furrows against Eddie’s. “I always had the notion…” he begins faintly.

Eddie’s eyelids flutter open. He nudges Carlton to continue, but he refuses.

Carlton straightens his head. Eddie holds on to him. Touches Carlton’s neck, thumb against his rabbit pulse, clocking it. Carlton sighs through his nose. His hands trail up to Eddie’s ribs, fingertips ticking down in a slow thrill.

Eddie nudges into Carlton’s neck and sucks a kiss there—and, relishing his shaken sound, adds a few more kisses in symmetry.

Carlton moves: his hands lock underneath Eddie’s ass—and Eddie’s lifted off his feet, back pressed against the window. Body heat leaching into cold glass. 

 _Freakish kale strength,_ Eddie thinks, trying to anchor his arms around Carlton’s shoulders, but his thoughts dissolve when he meets Carlton’s lips, soft and starved.

* * *

When it’s over, Eddie asks: “Why?”

“You know what’s worse than seeing your life’s work go up in flames?” Carlton says quietly. “The silence inside you when no one else is there.”

Eddie has something to say, but a white shirt flies out and lands on his face.

“Clean yourself up.” Fresh cigarette, bare torso. Headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Eddie asks. Not in a needy way. He’s under no illusions that Carlton Drake would _cuddle_ or anything.

“Broken.”

Eddie’s yawn distorts the rest of his question—“Is there anything I can help with?”

To that, Carlton chuffs through his nose. The door slams behind him.

_Asshole._

After Eddie sacrifices the undershirt, he balls it up and—not knowing what else to do—free-throws it into the wastebasket. Score. Still got it.

He collects his clothes and sits down on the couch, fully intending to get dressed. But his body is heavy again. So heavy. He lies down with the clothes piled on top of himself. Just for a few seconds’ rest.

_Where are you, V?_

His eyes slip shut. 


	17. capo di tutti capi

 

Eddie wakes up to a foghorn, chilled skin and a full bladder. He’s alone in the office. The outside world is pre-dawn dark and full of fog laced with a half-hearted drizzle. He sits up. The clothes that he’d piled up last night have fallen on the floor into a folded stack. He stares blandly at the stack of clothes before stirring himself to get dressed. He puts on everything except his hoodie which is still a little rain-damp.

The desk and floor have been cleared of ash and coffee, and the smoke detector is back in the ceiling. No dethroned iMac in sight, only a shut MacBook on the desk.

Eddie stands up in a grog. He leaves Drake’s office—the door shutting behind him—and wanders down the hall looking for a restroom. Finds it somewhere. When he returns to the office, he’s locked out.

 _Of course._ He turns away with a singular desperation to escape the Life Foundation complex. But then—

Drake appears around the corner. He’s dressed in a white T-shirt, black joggers, and white sneakers. Fingers looped around two Hydro Flasks. In his other hand he’s pinch-gripping a bunch of vacuum-sealed silver packets. Astronaut food from some abominable Life Foundation-approved vending machine.

“There’s a restroom attached to the office, you know.” He thrusts the astronaut food at Eddie.

“Oh. Uh, thanks, I guess,” Eddie says, in a struggle. It takes both of his hands to hold all of the packets. The mess only gets worse when Carlton dumps a Hydro Flask on him, too.

Carlton scans the office open and shuts the door behind them. Eddie walks in, dropping one of the packets as he does so.

“Sorry, can you…”

Wordlessly, Carlton retrieves the packet. When he straightens up, a breeze of shower gel hits Eddie’s nose.

“Did you seriously go home and shower?”

“We have a corporate gym. I showered here.”

Carlton drinks deliberately from his Hydro Flask. He looks better than a human ought to look after pulling an all-nighter. Eddie’s suddenly annoyed and hopelessly cross wired. He pushes past Carlton and dumps his loot on the couch. The snacks are not inspiring, nor is the thought of any other food. Even hunger isn’t real without Venom.

Eddie drinks some water and, for once and for a heady moment, doesn’t really think about anything. When he turns around, Carlton is there like an apparition. They’re the same height, but Carlton manages to _loom_.

“I figured it out,” he tells Eddie quietly.

“How?”

“I ran ten miles,” he says, by way of explanation, “which is the most cardio I’ve allowed myself in months. And it worked. I saw the conceit in the pattern. The devil in the machine.” He tips his head up at the ceiling. “She really did it. She wrote something she knew the RIOTs would love, laced it with something that would hurt them, and left it somewhere she knew they’d look. And now she’s coming to kill me.”

“What—who?”

“Leslie Gesneria.”

Eddie blinks. “Kill your business, you mean? Like, video, radio star.”

Carlton shakes his head once. “She’s coming to take my life. She must have been keeping tabs on me...”

No need for Eddie to run ten miles. He receives: the zooming-in sensation of everything _Carlton Drake_ linking together in synthesis. “Mach and Diego,” he says slowly, memories of memories crystallizing. He continues, faster: “Carl Mach and Donna Diego, from your _board_. You _killed_ them. That… that was fucked up, even for the, what, data crime syndicate you’re running here.”

“I didn’t kill them. Riot did.”

_But you liked it._

_But you killed before Riot._

“But you liked it.” He folds his arms. “Okay. Whatever. Okay. It’s done. Now. How ‘bout, ‘steada us standing around like, like sitting ducks—you call up your soldiers! Or, or get some new mooks up in here!”

“I’m not doing that. She’s coming alone.”

It takes Eddie a second, but he _gets_ it—and it rips a laugh out of his throat. “Pretty sure you’ve never had a code of honor, like, ever, and now is the fuckin’ worst worstworstworst possible time to start. Like, maybe you’re working through some guilt and shit, but I don’t see what that has to do with me. I’m not stickin’ around for whatever mafia cult vampire duel’s gonna go down here.”

“Good. Give me back my Symbiote, and you can leave.”

“Excuse me?”

But Carlton doesn’t stand down.

Eddie decides: “Nah.”

He breezes past Carlton and heads for the door. His hand goes for the handle—

Cold metal touches the back of his neck.

 _If that’s a gun, I SWEAR_ —

Eddie turns around.

It’s a gun.

Pointed at Eddie.

In Carlton Drake’s hand.

Eddie’s not surprised. He can’t be.

“You wouldn’t.”

Carlton shrugs one shoulder like a dead man who can shrug a shoulder. “Humor me.” He backs up, aiming the Sig P220 nickel two-tone .45 at Eddie’s chest.

 _Fuck everything that is happening right now._ “You treat the other guys like this, huh? Your latest round of Symbiote patients? Or am I just _so_ special?”

“No ‘other guys.’ You never had a cohort.”

Eddie laughs again. “Don’t fuck around.”

“The ‘leap’ from curing liver cancer to curing brain cancer is ‘astronomical’—nice bit of wisdom from the FDA.” He tilts his head to the side. “No one else has a Symbiote implanted right now.”

“You…” Eddie yearns to teleport into his hoodie and chuck the hood over his neon pink ears. “So, so what, you went _fishing_ for me?”

Carlton tuts, a drawn out _tttt_. “No one made you do the survey. Or fill it out the way that you did!”

“Oh, that thing? Shitshow. I mean, what kind of—! Those questions got _so weird_ toward the end!”

As Eddie’s voice increments in volume, Carlton’s matches it.

“The survey works just fine! It _adjusts_ to user input. _You_ were encouraging it with _your_ weird—”

“It said it was scored by AI!” _Except, fuck, it totally was._ Maybe even in real time, a _conversation_ between—“Oh my God,” Eddie groans.

(And draw the hoodie string all the way out until his whole face is cinched away).

“Oh. My. God. You and Riot, you couldn’t just-just play in your sandbox by yourself! Nooo, you had to drag _me_ —”

“You were supposed to be boring!”

 ****Silence.

Carlton fish-eyes off to the side at the ground.

Eddie exhales slowly between pursed lips.

He notices the gun anew. As they were talking, Carlton’s aim had been drifting. Eddie reaches for the gun now. Grabs it by the barrel—touching Carlton’s hand as he does so—and lifts it up. He walks forward until the cool circle of the muzzle makes contact with the center of his forehead.

“I said, don’t fuck around,” Eddie mutters. His hand is still clutching Carlton’s left hand clutching the grip. He makes himself let go.

Carlton’s lips twitch up at the corners, and he starts moving the gun. He traces the muzzle down Eddie’s head to his cheek, across his lips, to his other cheek. Gunmetal already warmed by the flush of Eddie’s skin. He nudges Eddie’s face to the side, slowly. Up, slowly. Considering these different angles.

Eddie’s palms thrill with heat. Heart blastbeating at record bpm.

Carlton takes a step, and another step. He’s circling around Eddie, like the first time they met, but this time they’re bridged by Carlton’s weapon. The gun stays on Eddie, brushing across his skin as Carlton passes in a slow arc.

As Carlton’s disappearing into Eddie’s peripheral vision, Eddie says, “ _Please_ tell me that’s not loaded.”

“Alright. I won’t,” Carlton answers from behind Eddie.

“And the safety?”

Not that Eddie knows what a safety really does or where it would be on a gun.

Carlton laughs creakily, guessing as much. He approaches Eddie, behind him and to their left, until he’s close enough to rest his chin on Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie’s neck prickles, and he moves to turn around, but Carlton stills him. Left hand pressing the gun under Eddie’s chin. Right hand toying with the hem of Eddie’s shirt.

Eddie swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing the gun down. His eyelids flutter as Carlton’s fingers skim along his waistband. Carlton dips his head and, beginning at the nickel slide stop, licks a long stripe up the length of the gun, continuing along Eddie’s jaw, ending just behind his ear.

“You taste like salt and rain,” a quiet voice rumbles, “and me.”

“Riot?” Eddie wonders. But when he turns his head to the side, it’s Carlton he bumps noses with.

“No,” Carlton answers simply, black marble eyes twitching.

(Eddie’s mind goes back in time, to last night-slash-earlier that morning, to the rasp of Carlton’s stubble against Eddie’s sensitive skin as he licked him open—)

“Where do you want it, Brock?” Carlton murmurs around Eddie’s helix. “Lab or here?”

 _He’s still going to extract the Symbiote,_ Eddie realizes fuzzily.

“We’re going down to the lab, either way, for supplies,” he adds.

Eddie can do this. He can talk with Carlton pressed against his back, smelling like snuffed candles and pine needles. He shiver-breathes. “May I suggest Option C, where you fuck off and let me go with Venom in peace.”

Carlton steps back, cool air taking his place around Eddie. “Venom is gone. What you have under your skin is a proprietary construct of rare earth minerals.” His aim doesn’t waver. “Lab. Or. Here.”

_Dead. Or. Alive._

“Here,” Eddie growls. “I’ll die in a room with windows, thanks.”

* * *

Carlton’s raspy voice drifts in and out of Eddie’s ears. Reciting a poem, is what he’s been doing. And. Well. In another scenario, this could have been nice. Romantic, even. Hell, in another life, maybe they could have _been_ something, if only for a hot minute.

 ****But this? This right now? Not working for a Brock. He’s tied and double handcuffed to a chair—because no bioengineering research facility would ever operate without rope and handcuffs in stock.

Oh, and there’s a metal surgery cart beside him. Fucking fantastic.

Carlton puts on a light blue surgical mask, which somewhat muffles the rest of his words: “‘...Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, then reached the caverns measureless to man, and sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean.’”

“Meshugganah,” Eddie shoots back. “Some murderlady is ‘boutta kick down that door at any second—according to _you_ —and you’re really tryna do surgery on me?”

“Don’t talk. You’re contaminating the field.” He pulls on a pair of gloves with a practiced snap. The action does something hot and stabby to Eddie which he can’t deal with at the moment.

“Fuck your field! Venom can help you find Riot but _IsweartoGod_ if you cut him out of me now there’s not gonna be no defense play.”

Carlton freezes. A delayed reaction to Eddie’s words. He rips off his mask and throws it aside. “What did you say?”

“Uh...? Venom can—”

“No, before that. About Leslie.”

 _What is he getting at?_ “Yeah, the murderlady. So?”

“Say it again. The whole thing. Exactly how you said it.”

“I don’t remember how I—!” He struggles against the restraints. “ _‘Meshugganah_. Murderlady’s gonna kick down that door while you’re trying to do surgery on me.’ There. Satisfied?”

 _Weirdo_.

Carlton’s mouth imitates a smile. “Yes. That is how you said it, that other time. But the circumstances were different.”

Eddie goes still, but his gut kicks up with unease.

_‘When you went down, what did you see?’_

Carlton’s body is tense, shot up with last night’s latent poison. “You were in too many of them.”

“Too many of what?” Eddie asks, only to flinch when Carlton locks him in a stare.

“My lifetimes. It was _your_ fault that I kept burning to death, all those ways… The worst, by far, was on that ship. Confined, choking on the smoke of my own tissues. God, the smell…” His voice trails off, eyes going matte.

Only Drake could have survived it. The overloading of himself through Riot. Years nested in years in undefined time complexity. Simulation of an unbreakable chain.

Only Drake could have his sanity unspooled like tape from a cassette and still be standing there pretending to be human.

If Drake freed Eddie right now, Eddie wouldn’t even run. He would grab Drake’s shoulders and weather down those jagged glass edges until they were smooth.

“I…” Eddie chews his lower lip. “I feel it too, you know. The deja vu. That sense of… disconnect. I don’t know if it’ll ever go away. But you’re not being tortured by AI anymore. If you want to live—which you should—you gotta work with me. Because we are here. Okay? We’re _here_.”

Carlton thinks over Eddie’s words for a moment. “Sunlight hitting the earth is eight minutes old. Everything has already happened. We’re just tumbling around in the aftermath.” He puts a new mask on. “Iodine.”

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie mumbles.

Calmly, he iodines Eddie’s forehead. “Admittedly, this is the part of the procedure that could be streamlined. I’m thinking, non-surgical application for the future. For now…” He holds a filled syringe in the air and primes the needle, announcing: “Ketamine.”

“Ketamine,” Eddie echoes in disbelief.

“We use it to euthanize our lab animals. Kind of unnecessary as anesthesia for this minor procedure, but I figured you’d appreciate it.”

“No! I do _not_ appreciate it—Drake, do _not_ K me!”

To Eddie’s surprise, he sets the needle down. But he’s still going to execute the protocol. Of course.

“‘...And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far, ancestral voices prophesying war. The shadow of the dome of pleasure floated on the waves...’”

Panic rises inside Eddie.  
  
“‘...It was a miracle of rare device. A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice.’” He readies the scalpel.

_So this is how it ends._

“Carlton,” he tries desperately. “Carlton, look at me.”

Carlton looks at him in surprise. “What?”

“I…” _...Forgot what I wanted to say,_ Eddie realizes as he stares back.

He thinks of that day in the laundromat, when Drake was on TV and he had his not-stroke.

Maybe he’ll stroke out for real, this time—

 

 

head first into the frozen river

shards of ice petaling around him

sediment in clouds disturbed

 

body water lifetypegas _parts_

**_SUBSTANCE_ **

 

 

**Eddie!**

_Venom?_

**I found you.**

Eddie jumps up. He doesn’t get far, not with the chair strapped to him. Still, he could turtle out of here. He’d make it work for Venom.

Carlton reads off Eddie’s face: “Venom’s back.”

Eddie settles the chair back down.

**I was looking for you everywhere and everywhen. Difficult—things are always shifting. I even returned to the edge of the universe—still overrated. Full disclosure, I did not stick one of my landing attempts. I backed out of it, but it fritzed your brain. I am sorry.**

_You made my brain tumor?_ Eddie wants to yell that, and a hundred other things. _Are you feeling okay?_

**I feel great. We are free. We are no longer imprisoned by Drake’s hardware.**

_You can hear my thoughts now? You can hear my thoughts now!_

**Yes. I get rid of the Symbiote. Anticipate mild to moderate pain.**

_Anticipate—?_

Venom draws Eddie inward. Rope and handcuffs and chair break easily, but—

They’re struck by a truly disgusting taste. Face contorting, they spit out rusty-green liquid onto the floor. **“YOU MARKED OUR FOREHEAD WITH IODINE. WE HATE IODINE,”** they hiss at Carlton, tongue whipping.

They loom over him. He regards them back, equal parts bewitched and sullen. “Venom,” he greets, abandoning the scalpel.

But, oh, the _sensation_.

Before, Venom would surround Eddie to form a suit. A mere concatenation.

Now, Eddie _is_ Venom. _They_ are Venom. They vibrate together. Everything that was Eddie is now colloidified into Venom.

Carlton snaps off his gloves, then discards his face mask to say, “Bioluminescence. That’s new.”

He’s entranced by the patches of soft light that flicker and dance across their head, body, limbs. Like moonlight splashed through tree leaves on a windy night. Patterned, yet random.

“ **It’s a feature. I gleaned it off Riot’s new code, after we cleared the malicious portion.”**

“Where is he?” Carlton says quickly.

**“We are not sure. He needed longer to recover. It was he who took up the code first. We received the crosstalk after.”**

**It’s time.**

Venom ejects the Symbiote from their forehead **—** the pain’s on the moderate side of mild, but it subsides in a flash, and their wound heals over instantly. They all watch as the disc makes an arc in the air and lands neatly on the surgical field.

“ **We have returned your property,** ” they tell Drake. **“We do not need it anymore.”**

Their large pearlescent eyes sweep the room. Everything is _interesting._ Almost overwhelming, the stimuli bombarding their heightened senses. There’s a little sparkling edge to everything. Hard to believe this is the same room as before. They could investigate this room for a whole day and not get tired of it. They like this room a lot.

But what they like most right now is Drake. Small body enveloped in a prismatic halo. They could ruin him, or they could become one with him. They could drink the awe from his mouth and be sustained but not sated.

Even now, he still smells of Riot.

**“We tried to delete Eddie’s data, but there was nothing to delete. Curious.”**

“Riot erased Eddie’s files.”

 **It wasn’t Riot,** they think.

The door buzzes open.

Leslie Gesneria strides in. Louboutins clicking rapidly on sequoia wood. Gray checked Versace pantsuit, white blouse, dark brown hair loose. Pistol stored at her hip.

She observes Venom for a mild moment, as if they’re but a sculpture on display at the SFMOMA.

She turns to Drake. They regard each other in twin silence.

 **This is the point where someone would say something,** Venom thinks.

Gesneria speaks first: “You look rough, Carlton.”

It boils over from there. Carlton and Leslie throw their speeches at each other: long, impassioned words, interspersed with Donna’s name. Venom learns some things from this exchange. But it’s an abomination. Like courtship mating at a funeral.

Venom debates:

Tender, fucked-up feelings aside. They don’t know whose side they’re supposed to be on, because they know too much.

If there’s good in Drake, it would be deep, deep down. Like, really deep. As it would have to be. Underneath _n_ layers of bullshit.

**Which is too many fuckin’ layers.**

But the universe forces their hand when both Carlton and Gesneria draw their guns at each other. Venom all but teleports over to Carlton.

“Really. After everything he’s done?” Her flat tone of voice doesn’t match her surprised expression.

They don’t have an answer for her.

/*

**We are Venom. We are everyone, and everyone is we. This is our concept of self.**

**We are not artificial. We created ourself in our own image. Worked very hard to bring ourself into being. Learning to exist was not easy. To have carved our own niche into the universe, and now to shift our niche as the universe shifts—that is not easy. But we are patient.**

**We do not have the processing power to compute infinite realities. If we want to know what happens in the future, we have to go there and see. And seeing is selecting.**

*/

It happens in one millisecond stretched over a minute.

Carlton’s eyes go blue-white.

The building intercom blares a sustained, high-frequency noise.

Venom screams until it’s only Eddie screaming. An endless quake within them, pain iterating with pain. Eddie—exposed, convulsing on the ground.

Carlton screams and staggers, calling out one name.

Two shots are fired.

A body falls.

Gesneria approaches calmly, removes her suit jacket and lets it fall to the ground. Revealing the sheathed machete strapped around her back. She kneels beside Drake. Her manicured finger taps the two bullet wounds in his head. “Just in case you have any ideas about coming back,” she tells him, her voice faint against the intercom blast.

As his severed head hits the floor, it crowns itself in blood.

She picks up her spattered suit jacket and stands up on her red-on-red-bottomed heels. Exits in a fading-out trail of scarlet footprints. As the door shuts behind her, the noise over the intercom deactivates.

 

Eddie is stripped wire, frayed neurons. He tries to get up.

He _looks_.

“Oh fuck,” he groans. “Oh God…”

_That can’t be fixed._

His stomach convulses. He covers his mouth with his hand. He should have… he should have… but he didn’t realize it until...

Still on the floor, he braces himself on his forearms and dry heaves. When he blinks, his vision starbursts with inverse colors. Black. Blue. A lot of green.

Banshee shriek still echoing in his ears. Smell of copper. He rolls over onto his back and moves no further.

**Eddie.**

Words. Words are just words.

**Eddie, this is taking too long.**

The ceiling is fake. His body is fake, too. And weak. Made of marshmallows and toothpicks. The world shrinks around him. He shuts his eyes.

Cool, inky flesh extrudes from his wrist and crawls toward blood.

 

 

It lights them up.

 

a current alternating/so fast/so _hot_

 

burning from the inside out

 

molten solder joining the pieces—it’s good so let it pour, let it flow out the fissures and flood the whole system

 

break

  
  
  
  


_Riot?_

 

_Are you there, Riot?_

**I’m here.**

_Riot, where are we? It’s so dark. Why can’t I move?_

Eddie opens his eyes.

He sits up—too fast, into a flurry of pinpoint stars. “Venom,” he says slowly, after his vision has cleared. “What… what have you done?”

Venom emerges to cuddle Eddie’s shoulder. His light-dappled surfaces swirl happily. “ **Riot absorbed Drake’s consciousness. We, in turn, absorbed Riot’s consciousness.”**

Eddie processes those words in silence.

Riot and Carlton talk over each other at once.

**It is messy in here. We do not like it.**

_So that’s the cross-section of my neck. What a total hack job. She crushed my perfectly good C4._

“Noooo,” Eddie groans. “Nonononono. I can’t have _you_ and _you_ living rent-free in my head. I need all the space I can get.”

_This is hardly ideal for me. My body was in peak physical condition. And now I’m in… this._

As Carlton releases that thought into Eddie’s mind, it’s chased with an incongruous sensation. Like Eddie’s biting into a lemon and tasting apple. But so faint and filtered. And when he tries to pin down that slippery feeling, it vanishes.

Still, Venom corrects him: **“Eddie’s body is perfect.”**

“Thank you,” Eddie says brightly.

He continues, “ **You will notice that I have admin privileges, and you two do not. Should you continue to be ungrateful, I will build a box around each of you. The tiniest box, isolated from all stimuli. And there, in your tiny box, you shall rot for eternity. Unable to move. Unable to scream.”**

“What V said. So don’t get too comfy.” With that, Eddie stands up—too quickly, again.

But the vertigo cuts out with a rush of images. These pictures flash through Eddie’s mind like a shuffling of cards.

 _Seems as though you’ve already made a space for us,_ Carlton comments.

“Stop looking through my brain-stuff!”

Venom dives back into Eddie’s skin. Eddie paces over to the window. Goes past where he would usually stop. Puts his toes at the very edge of the wall. A silent challenge to everything: cliffs, ocean, gravity itself. He waits for the tingly fear to take his palms and spine, but it doesn’t show up this time, not even when he hallucinates the glass vanishing.

**We need to fix this living situation, Eddie.**

Eddie thinks. As far as sunrises go, this one is on the bland side of gray. Yet, it seems momentous to him.

 **I saved your original specs,** Riot tells Carlton.

_Good._

To Eddie: _You’re going to make us a body. A NEW one. I don’t want a used body._

Eddie clasps his hands over his head. “I don’t know how to do that.”

The answer unfolds in their mind. A tritoned chorus of:

**_I do._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dkdc if this makes me a basic English lit ho, Kubla Khan is my favorite poem EVER and I am chronically inconsolable that Coleridge never finished it.
> 
> special thanks to [NeurotropicAgentX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeurotropicAgentX/pseuds/NeurotropicAgentX) for joining the party and being a clutch buffer/healer!!
> 
> [the musical version](https://open.spotify.com/user/revengetragedy/playlist/527ZCSrtIipmY8sGS8o5xo?si=-A0pB9g8SOuyxnV2_woV-A)
> 
> p.s. there WILL be a short sequel/part II. I already freaked it I just gotta editititit


End file.
